On Wednesday night, three men who want to unseat him participated in a League of Women Voters forum on the University of Puget Sound campus in Tacoma before an audience of about 40. Dicks, a Belfair Democrat who got more than 70 percent of the vote two years ago, did not participate.

Of his challengers – two lawyers and a college professor – only one has held public office at any level.

Green Party candidate Gary Murrell spent much of the evening trading barbs with Democrat Paul Richmond, though they were often close in their policy positions.

Richmond tried to distinguish his party from the Green Party by comparing the Greens’ popularity to low-fat milk – 2 percent.

Murrell fired back that such a diet might help end the obesity of the “military-industrial-congressional complex” and of Democrats he said are beholden to large corporate donors.

Meanwhile, Republican Doug Cloud emphasized private-sector solutions to America’s ills.

“We need to get back to our basic, private-enterprise, free-economy roots,” he said.

Over the evening, the candidates took the following positions:

 • Murrell and Richmond favored prosecution of members of the current administration; Cloud was against it.

 • Murrell and Richmond were for single-payer, nonprofit health care; Cloud was against it.

 • Murrell and Richmond said they would consider closing military bases in the congressional district; Cloud said he’d fight to keep them.

Each was asked why he was seeking a congressional seat representing hundreds of thousands of people rather than try to make a difference at a local or state level.

“The issues that Congress deals with are the ones that most interest me,” Cloud said.

Murrell, who served on the City Council in Hoquiam, Grays Harbor County, said, “I want to restore the republic.” He noted that he wanted the Constitution to “mean what it says” when stating that only Congress can declare war, not the president.

Richmond, who has worked on public policy issues, such as helping to end a program that sent the National Guard out on police drug raids, told an anecdote about Dicks.

He said Dicks approached him at a picnic last year and he asked Dicks to pursue impeachment against President Bush. Dicks said it wasn’t what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted.

Richmond said he retorted, “Do you represent us to Nancy Pelosi, or Nancy Pelosi to us?”