WEEDSTOCK ORGANIZER TRIES TO UNSEAT KOHL

Activism Began in High School, Masel Says

MILWAUKEE - Ben Masel says his top interests include "good hash" and
"getting acquitted" - not exactly what you'd expect from a candidate
for U.S. Senate. But the 51-year-old liberal activist from Madison has
made a career of doing things his own way.

In high school in 1969 he participated in a strike in which he says
protesting students demanded and received the principal's
resignation.

He was arrested for his prominent role in Vietnam War protests, which
he says led to his being "indefinitely suspended" from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison after his freshman year in 1971.

He ran for governor as a Republican candidate in 1990, for Dane County
sheriff as a Democrat in 1994, and for Congress as a Libertarian in
1996.

And he has helped organize Weedstock, an annual pro-marijuana rally,
for 35 years.

Political experts say Masel, pronounced MAY-zell, has no chance of
knocking off incumbent Sen. Herb Kohl in the Wisconsin primary on
Tuesday. Kohl, a Democrat, seeks re-election to a fourth consecutive
six-year term.

Kohl's Washington office referred all comment to his Madison campaign
office, which did not return several messages left.

The primary winner faces Republican Robert Lorge of Bear Creek and
Green Party candidate Rae Vogeler of Oregon in November.