The former Senator, Jesse Helms, died on July 4, 2008. Having spent 30 years in the Senate, we now witness the parade of accolades from a steam of sycophants from the White House to Bono. The repeat refrain is that the conservative Jesse Helms was an uncompromising man of principle. Anyone who believes that just doesn’t know the story.
Jesse Helms’ rise to fame started as an editorial commentator in the 60’s for a Raleigh, NC television station. These established positions proliferated throughout the South after the hippie movement and the 1964 Civil Rights Bill (which Helms called the “most dangerous piece of legislation ever to have crossed the halls of Congress”.) It was half commentator and half vaudeville. These were bigots of the first order, using their platforms to espouse a thinly veiled hatred that was shocking even then.
Then comes 1972 with a sobbing Muskie, a small time break in at an obscure office building called Watergate and the re-coronation of “Nixon’s the One.” Jesse and supporters knew that North Carolina was going to hand up a Nixon landslide and the time was right to try to elect a politically incorrect bigot to protect the “state’s rights” and “family values” of the good (i.e., white) people of the country.
The story would have ended there but for an unknown Machiavellian political genius named Carter Wrenn. Wrenn set up a political fundraiser he called the “Congressional Club.” It was intended as little more than a Jesse Helms fundraising arm, but one that eventually re-wrote the political fundraising textbook
Wrenn figured out something – it was the losers in a political fight that were more willing to chip in cash than the winners. Tiny minorities, fringe groups, and out of favor causes were populated by one issue voters, ideologues and the mentally challenged, all of whom would put heart and soul, and more importantly wallet, into their causes.
Wrenn saw that he could create a political annuity that virtually printed money. By championing these forgotten and often embarrassing groups, the Congressional Club would have a monopoly and first right on a stream of income that was completely off the political radar, but went right to the coffers for Jesse Helms. While 99 other Senators (as well as 435 members of Congress) fought it out for the crumbs of the more traditional contributors, Helms became the Senatorial savior to one fringe group after another.
The Congressional Club didn’t dun these people for big money in most cases. Instead, following a famous and successful Clemson University program, IPTAY (I pay Twenty a Year) Wrenn’s group asked for modest donations, often just $20 to $50 dollars, but they asked over and over and over. And they got it. Money began to pour in from all over the world.
Jesse Helms “principle” was to locate these groups and then champion their unpopular, dangerous or ridiculous positions. The Club could then justifiably write to the fringe members touting the one Senator that saw things their way and bang the drums for support. In an age before truckloads of junk mail and incessant charitable panhandling, the Club’s letters were received as a genuine common cause.
The goal then was to simply keep adding fringe group contributor lists. It was shooting big fish in a small barrel. The trick, not too hard to pull off, was simply to make sure that the older contributor groups were not offended by the new groups. So an odd couple contributors list began to develop which later became the “base” of the neoconservative movement.
Gun groups, anti abortionists, anti-UN protesters and gay bashers stood alongside Argentinians who wanted to liberate the Falklands from Britain. Helms became famous as the 1 in 99 to 1 Senate votes. He developed the nickname “Senator No.” He held firm, hard and fast, to an agenda that frightened even the Republican minority leadership.
Contrary to popular belief, Helms was never a commanding figure in his home state of North Carolina. Locals well knew that Helms fundraising was from everywhere under the sun but North Carolina. They also knew that his causes cared precious little about what benefitted North Carolinians.
So it was no surprise that Jesse Helms started each re-election deeply in the red in the polls – often decent sized double digits. And it is there that the true legacy of Jesse Helms lies.
Helms, fueled by the mother’s milk of Congressional Club cash, eviscerated any remaining dignity in political campaigning. He hired the very best political aides to focus group to death the effects of a series of blatant, misleading and slanderous ads against his opponent. Issues were hardly discussed. It always became personal with Helms. When the most effective had been identified, he pounded the airways with a merciless barrage of expensively produced ads that stayed just far enough north of outright fabrication to confuse the issue.
Borrowing tactics from Himmler, Helm’s miscast his opponent’s votes, rewrote his opponent’s history, embellished every slight misstep, misquoted or misinterpreted newspaper accounts, and labeled his opponents with battle tested smears. And they would advertise over and over and over. Not even the most popular politicians could match the onslaught
Political battles in North Carolina became an Alice in Wonderland adventure. When responsible journalists would correct the record, the Helms machine would attach them or, more often, twist their condemnation into a distorted endorsement and advertise that. No matter what was said, it meant what Jesse Helms meant it to mean. And Jesse Helms would then win by the narrowest of margins.
The key wasn’t any political issue or stance. It was simply about winning and keeping the gravy train going. As long as there was an untouched and naïve group of crusaders who could write checks Jesse would be there.The issues hardly mattered. Most Helms campaigns were contrived acts of bigotry, designed not to serve a constituency but to focus their anger against the other guy. The shame of it is that it worked.
Like Lee Atwater before him, Helms softened when he saw death approaching. Apparently he believed in a judgment day and knew that his pearly gates application as Senator No had no chance. He backed off his gay bashing, anti AIDS research stance enough to have the very gullible Bono gushing about how many lives Jesse Helms saved. Sorry Bono, but you apparently still haven’t found what you’re looking for.
The “kindly uncle” or “courteous Southern gentleman” veneer, viewed from a lifetime of hate and bigotry, is simply a cynical and hideous cover for one of the most disastrously evil, anti-American bigots of the 20th century. If there is any justice at all, Jesse Helms will find that God is a black, gay woman, eagerly awaiting his arrival.
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