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TechnoratiThe Toxic Legacy of Jesse Helms
His notorious race-baiting and Red-bashing political campaigns molded the modern Republican party
It is almost fitting that Senator Jesse Helms - longtime US Senator from North Carolina, onetime right-wing political commentator and a constant conservative voice on both domestic and foreign policy issues in American politics for the past half decade - passed away during an election year that may indeed see the demise of the conservative coalition that he was a key player in building.
Ronald Reagan gets the monuments. Richard Nixon is credited with the "Southern strategy". But no single politician - save perhaps Strom Thurmond - embodied the manipulation of race, religion and the overarching set of issues known simply as "family values" to bring the once-solid Democratic South into the GOP fold.
Helms, using resentments as old as the South and as new as the racial tension seething in major American cities in the 1960s, built a coalition of social and foreign policy conservatives in service of the economic agenda completely at odds with the majority of those who ended up voting for him and his colleagues. The foot soldiers in this revolution were rallied to the cause based on a mutual hatred for liberals, "integrationists", homosexuals and most often the easy to apply, one-size-fits-all moniker of "Communist".
Jesse Alexander Helms was born in Monroe, North Carolina, the son of a police chief. While he never did receive a university degree, he discovered he had a talent for anti-establishment political agitation, which he began to utilize as a right-wing commentator for radio and television stations in Raleigh, North Carolina. There he fine-tuned his pitch, calling civil-rights supporters Communists, and otherwise earning himself a place in the race-baiting hall of fame.
Helms possessed tobacco and banking connections (he was the executive director of the North Carolina bankers' association from 1953-1960), and understood the power of an emerging array of New Right organisations that relied upon corporate money and a message decrying social decay at home and Communism abroad. He tapped into both, along with the newer technology of targeted mail, to build a formidable war chest that allowed him to squeak by in a number of divisive campaigns, to win and hold onto his senate seat while never receiving more than 54.5% of the vote.
To pick one of many infamous examples of the Helms campaign method, in his 1990 Senate election Helms ran an ad blaming his African-American opponent, Charlotte city mayor Harvey Gantt, for supporting "racial quotas" which cost whites jobs while giving them to a "less qualified minority".
His overall impact on American politics cannot be overstated. In 1976, when after the former California governor Ronald Reagan had been defeated in a number of primaries by incumbent President Gerald Ford, Helms resurrected Reagan's career by helping engineer a win for Reagan in the North Carolina primary. Ford ultimately received the GOP nomination that year - but when he lost in the general election Reagan became the party's heir apparent.
Legislatively, Helms unsuccessfully filibustered the enactment of a Martin Luther King memorial holiday, because of King's supposed "Communist ties". He fought tooth and nail against federal financing of Aids research and treatment, infamously uttering: "There is not one single case of Aids in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." As a member of the Senate's foreign relations committee, he fought against the US paying its financial dues to the UN. These and many other acts of legislative obstruction earned him the sobriquet "Senator No."
Jesse Helms may be gone. But if you follow politics, he cannot be forgotten. For every time Republicans win a state in a presidential election by placing a gay marriage ban on the ballot. Every time you hear a member or associate of the McCain campaign question Barack Obama's patriotism. Every time Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell sets a new record for obstruction by filibustering another bill. The presence of Jesse Alexander Helms on the American political stage can still be felt.
Cliff Schecter is an online producer for Brave New Films and a national commentator for Air America radio. He is the author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
42 Comments so far
Show AllYou are all as hateful as Jesse Helms. Just alot less sucessful!! ha ha hypocrites
One 'son of a bitch' less!!! What is scary is that he a) spent so much time in government and b) that he aquired so much power.
The alleged "Southern Strategy" is myth to cover the steals that have been going on since the computer counters the "media" use to report vote counts came in during the
mid-1960's. At least two journalist became suspicious
in the late 1960's about computer tallies and began to
investigate --
http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm
Meanwhile, Carter won all but one Confederate state ---
FUTHER . . .
With the death of Bill Buckley some documents seem to have
come tumbling out which suggest that the CIA was financing
the campaigns of Republican right-wingers --
This was done thru Howard Hughes via the front companies
he set up for the CIA ---
TWO of those who campaign funds were used to support were
Sen. Strom Thurmond and Gerald Ford.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Our political houses are stacked with greedy racist chronic underachieving frauds from top to bottom. I never could understand what the allure towards this pycho was. I suppose he campaigned on a lowest common denominator stratgey and there certainly is lots of that to go around. I remember readinhg the bumper sticker, "Next time you don't have to think, just vote Republican".
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/NASAcert.html
SRD-BCCM
The legacy of Helms lives on.........
I know a hemophiliac who is living with HIV that he contracted from contaminated blood back in the 1980's. Helm's comment "There is not one single case of Aids in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.", is a vicious callous insult to all peoples living with HIV.
Senator Margaret Dole, back when she was president of American Red Cross, and other business "leaders" made a conscious decision not to heat treat blood products because it would cost money. As a direct consequence of their collective irresponsible decision placing profit before people- thousands of people became infected with HIV and HCV- remember Ryan White? He died because of their greed.
Senator Margaret Dole is still making those same irresponsible decisions representing her state of North Carolina. She recently voted against children's health care because the proposed tobacco tax would hurt her state's tobacco industry.
Two years ago, my father died because of her state's tobacco industry. He died from lung cancer. He tried to quit several times. It was not his decision to continue smoking- he was "hooked" on this legal and very profitable drug. The tobacco industry lost a customer when my father died.
Profit before People.
The legacy of Helms lives on.........
I agree with buffgunner. The amount of sniveling and whining coming from the majority of these posts is amazing. Jesse Helms may not have been perfect, as I suppose the rest of you posters seem to think yourselves, but he was a far better senator than the vast majority of the spineless clowns that reside in our senate now.
P.S. Thanks for the post buffgunner. I have known several buffgunners over the years, good people.
Seventhson July 10th, 2008 1:49 pm
Very well stated!
I understand these unleashed feelings; I sometimes have and even express them myself toward people who believe as Helms did. But divisions in society, including those artificially created between natural allies like workers in Kansas and urban coastal liberals, lesbians who want to marry the person they love and budding entrepreneurs, will never be healed with this.
Projecting our own unwanted qualities onto our political enemies gets us only more perfectly evil enemies. No doubt many, if not all, the people posting such hate-full messages here count Martin Luther King as a hero, yet seem, at least for this moment, not to understand the core of his method and philosophy. Maybe it's just momentary forgetfulness. Or maybe the Left is as sick as the Right, just with the opposite face forward.
Want to win the political war? Stop fighting it.
Stop thinking of it as a war and start thinking of it as an orchestra. Start tuning your own instrument to the ones around you. Nowhere since he died have I seen anything about WHY Jesse Helms believed what he did. Find that out. Find out why you believe what you do and maybe we can all move on together and get what we all want.
I second Thomas More in his admiration for buffgunner's post. I do not like Jesse Helms and never did. In fact, I was quite disgusted by the fact that he lasted as long as he did in Congress.
But geez . . . the level of hatred spewed BACK at him on this post is a bit astonishing, to say the least . . . and even bordering on disturbing. If we dislike him because of his bigotry and HIS hate . . . how does it make us better by hating him back and being glad he's dead?
buffgunner July 10th, 2008 12:57 pm
Thanks for an excellent post.
Short of Hitler or the Marquis De Sade, few people are as "evil" as this hate fest would portray Jesse Helms. He most certainly was on the other side of the divide in comparison to "Progressives." I put the word in quotes as I find it hard to meld progressive with the absolute intolerance of many that describe themselves as such.
In any case, I thought it might be decent to mention a positive or two about Helms. If nothing else, it'll give the hatemongers a reason to "live another day."
In 1962 Jesse and Dot Helms adopted a 9-year-old orphan with cerebral palsy. It was Christmas time, and they read about Charlie in a newspaper. He said all he wanted for Christmas was a mother and father.
1963, Helms wrote about Harvey Gantt, the first black student to be admitted to Clemson University in South Carolina, "He just wanted to be an architect and Clemson is the only college in South Carolina that can teach him how to be one."
Helms hired James Meredith - the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi (assisted by federal troops). Meredith claimed Helms fired him as domestic policy adviser after a year because he was too right-wing for Helms.
Before going to congress, Helms championed the hiring of women at the Durham TV station where he worked as Executive VP in charge of Programming. Until that time women were relegated to secretarial or similar jobs.
Jesse Helms is America. Nixon is America. Raygun is America. Bush is America. America is exclusion based on gender, race, and class. That's what America CHOSE in the mid-60's and reaffirmed in every subsequent generation. The rest was simply 'dress-up' and LIES. YOU are the outsiders in America and always have been. We never did pass any laws outlawing lynching - couldn't be passed.
And now the Master's scythe is going to clear-cut the field that Jesse Helms plowed so fervently and well. The field is America and the scythe cuts all to the nub.
You are Americans: Line up, shut up, OBEY.
Good things happen only in dreams.
Is all of this misery the result of one man, Jesse A. Helms, or those that voted to put him into power? How many would have voted for him, even by a slim margin if they did not approve of his mind set, methods, and attitude?
Did his legacy die with him, or are there others who will take up where he left off?
Is this system that governs the USA a "Democracy", where representation of the people through the ballot is the rule, or are these people like Helms regional dictators, sent to Washington to gain power in their numbers, and practice their own form of dictatorship?
History as it is taught in the US Public School systems is "Revisionist" in Nature, Helms may or may not be treated with the truth as he deserves. The true responsibility lies with the people; and they do not seem to be learning from their mistakes. While the US economy is in tatters, the infrastructure crumbling, the environment polluted beyond what it ever has been. Racism, intolerance, religious bigotry and prejudice prevail and while a large number of the population waits to be rescued by a "Rapture"----the USA is killing thousands of innocent people in yet another war of "liberation". Spending money they do not have on a few corrupt corporations who supply that war, and killing and maiming their own young men and women--under the command of an absolute corrupt Military leadership -to bring "Democracy" to a people who do not want it and would rather stay in a medieval political system instead of take control of their own lives.
Jesse A. Helms was simply a puppet of the people who put him into power. He was not unique, original, or inspirational-----he was representative.
Wow Kalia, a racist bigot from the South had the "moral courage" to call a black man a murderer. Now that is funny!!! I call Bush a war criminal all the time, does that make me a "Saint" now???
Buffgunner: Why shouldn't you see hatred expressed here, after all, Helms was a paragon of hatred, as well as the epitome of extremism. That he flourished and moved about among us with impunity speaks volumes about the shortcomings our culture and also the dreadful character flaws that plague
humanity.
I'm absolutely astonished at the level of hate presented here - from the original article to the comments presented. While Jesse Helms was certainly a divisive person - he was nowhere near the description presented here.
Does "progressive" now mean "hatemonger?"
He is hated in Canada as well. His blatent interference in Canada's trade with Cuba angered many.
kalia:
In re: "He had the moral courage to call Nelson Mandella a murdurer and he never apologized for it"
FYI: What moral courage? Seems to me it was moral COWARDICE! Like all loudmouth bloviated bigots, Helms never had the INTESTINAL FORTITUDE to call Nelson Mandella a murderer to HIS FACE; he deemed it a whole LOT SAFER to diss from a GREAT DISTANCE..
Good riddance to that ignorant sonofabitch... :D
If Obama wins the election, we are sure to hear a rapid, rhythmic thumping sound from the grave of what a North Carolinian friend of mine once called "the most ignorant man in the United States."
I'm sure he, Jerry Falwell and Strom Thurmond are standing around in Hell lamenting the fact that the place is integrated--which would itself be an eternal punishment to them.
As Curly would say --
Pore Jesse's daid,
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid,
All gather 'round his coffin now and cry
And cry!
He had a heart of brass
And a G-O-P pol's ass
And that's why such a feller had to die.
Pore Jesse's daid
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid,
He's lookin' oh so peaceful and serene
And serene!
He's all laid out to rest
With his hands acrost his chest
His robe and hood have never been so clean!
Pore Jesse's daid
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid
His racist friends'll weep for miles around
Miles around!
The daisies in the dell
Will give out a different smell
When Jesse Helms is underneath the ground.
Pore Jesse's daid
A candle lights his haid
He's layin' in a coffin made of wood
Made of wood!
And some folks are feelin' glad
Cause he used to treat 'em bad
But now they know old Jesse's gone for good.
Pore Jesse's daid
A candle lights his haid!
He's lookin' oh so purty and so nice.
Oh so nice!
He looks like he's asleep,
But we're glad that he won't keep
And it's summer and they're running out of ice.
Pore Jesse's daid . . .
With apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
Amurcan politics at its best, small town values at their worst. Who kept him in office? How come the skimmed milk keeps rising to the top of the repugant party? I guess he did call Nelson Mandela a murderer but like all moral cowards, not to his face.
There are times like this that I think Lincoln should have let the south secede and let them carry on as the confederacy, Helms would have felt quite at home and the North would have rid itself of such bigots of course there would always be the northern brand of bigots to contend with!!! What can one say about his passing except his leaving made the country a bit sweeter.
He had the moral courage to call Nelson Mandela a murderer and he never apologized for it.
Why not let the dead rest in peace. He will have to meet his maker, that shoul;d be punishment enough.
Damned tobacco weasel and tobacco whore. I was hoping that he would die only after a long, drawn-out and PAINFUL bout of lung and other tobacco-related cancers! Hopefully, tobacco will soon die, as this motherf*cker has!
You mean that MLK day will be the day before the inauguration of President McKinney surely!
The myth that someone on the left can't win in the south is really not all that strong.
The article mentions the 90 campaign between Gantt and Helms. What it doesn't mention is that the race was so close that Helms felt the need to resort to such a despicable tactic.
I was in Georgia when Wyche Fowler won his Senate seat. Mr. Fowler was a very liberal congressman from downtown Atlanta. He was in the seat previously held by Andy Young and now held by John Lewis. The conventional wisdom at the time was that no Atlanta liberal could win either the Dem nomination or a statewide election.
What Mr. Fowler did was spend at least a year traveling the state speaking to small groups of people. And by doing so he basically made the point that they were getting screwed by the same people he'd been opposing as a liberal congressman from Atlanta.
Rural and conservative Americans are not nearly the lock of the Republicans as people might believe. For one, there is a very old and longstanding distrust in rural areas about big corporations. They get screwed by banks and insurance companies like everyone else. They have to struggle to get health insurance, with the extra fights to make sure some for-profit hospital company doesn't get their local hospital through 'privatization' and close it. Many of these fights in these areas go back to the days when rural farmers struggled against the railroad monopolies.
Remember, these are the areas that see more of the casualties from war. And there's always been a more isolationist trend to foreign policy in these areas. All the old-school Republican talk about being against 'nation-building' and foriegn involvements is echoing the opinions of people in these areas.
The problem is getting the message through. If you just try to run some ads on TV, they probably won't listen. But when Mr. Fowler spent all that time going around and talking to people across the state, it worked. Mr. Fowler won the Democratic nomination without a run-off, and then he won the general election.
Then, he got up to Washington and forgot what got him there. Six years later he didn't get out and talk to people, and just ran some ads on TV. He lost that election to Coverdale.
Also, take a look at the Presidential results from GA. Clinton won the state narrowly in 92. Then he lost it narrowly in 96. To me, the shocking thing about 2000 was the way the Democratic strategists abandoned the state in 00 and since. The Gore campaign made a huge mistake in my opinion of not trying to win states like this one. They just wrote off GA as unwinnable, didn't do the work like Mr. Fowler to talk to people, and then lost by double digits.
Most of these states have a rough balance between the large urban areas and the rural population. And also, if you can appeal to minority voters, the rural areas also have a very strong black vote that can come out. A much more left than normal Democratic campaign can win the urban areas and carry that rural black vote. Then the fight comes down to who can win the suburbs. And in an economy where all those people are up to their eyeballs in debt, watching their homes fall in value, watching their jobs disappear or certainly not getting raises, are still opposed to abortion, are still in favor of gun control, there are a lot of issues that a very aggressive lefty campaign could use to make that a very tough fight.
Its electoral math, not Jesse Helms that makes the south an important block for an election. What the Dems have tried to do is to put together just over 270 EV coalition that ignores the south but requires OH and FL. But I still don't view the south as unwinnable, if you think beyond the narrow stereotypes most people have about the south. And Jesse Helms did nothing to make it unwinnable. He just showed that a sleezy politician can use dirty tricks late in a race to win.
I wonder if there will be a cross burning at the grave for old times' sake…
Jesse Helms is dead
The BASTARD!
Coffeelover: he has been interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. Drink up, that grass will need lots of irrigation!!
senorpescado: I'm Sanderson '74. Small world!
BTW, speaking of MLK Day, has anyone else noticed that MLK Day '09 will be the day before the inauguration of President Obama! Sweet! I'll meet y'all at Jesse's grave!
we were target of this piece of shit in 9th grade, FBI and all for our left wing HIPPIE newletter, that would have been 1967? or so
his boss A.J.Fletcher an even bigger one,piece of caca
I stormed his office in DC after a trip back from Guatemala and Nicaragua in 83 after seeing all the drug running into Mena AK and McDill from there and all the little beautiful Indigenous children dead from Israeli pig's doll bombs
and then he helped with the opium planting by CIA green berets in San Marcos Guatemala,
etc etc etc.
I also will piss on his grave next time to Raleigh,
my dad's Mom attended the same church,
but as she was a little informed and had relatives that traveled,
she knew what a heinous individual this man? homophobe? was/is? closet himself?
the only good deed he did that I know of was adopting Charles,when he was 9 and who was in my class at Broughton '72
good riddance, hopefully soon in USA all these arrogant,greedy,ignorant,obese, xenophobic corrupt types will also, go to grave
or best I invite to go fishing, for free
best is IMPEACH and hang in public, or better to The Hague
maybe soon,
but only USA and Israel determines what reaction Iran does,
with that, then kiss your asses goodbye
I think Junk Yard Dogs theme music said it best. Another one bites the dust!
Great comments, all! Great comic relief :-D
Indeed, indeed: flush that toilet twice--just for Jesse's sake. Nasty, toxic SHIT like that needs to be thoroughly removed from the system! :-D
While others may choose to be more genteel about this ass-hat's kicking the bucket, I dare not to follow suit!
I AM GLAD HE IS DEAD. FLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another neocon bites the dust! Bring the next generation on because America can't survive another 4 years of reThuglicans.
Flush a couple more times, just to be sure he's gone.
Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels.
Certainly, racism, hatred and bigotry won't die with Jesse Helms, but Jesse Helms' particular brand of racism, hatred and bigotry will die with his generation. That's because his followers shared certain life experiences that Helms was able to tap into and exploit.
Cold comfort, yes, but comfort nonetheless.
When Obama is defeated, chiefly by appeals to racism, subtle or not, this piece of trash Helms will be laughing from Hell.
Hopefully, the new Jesse Helms's that will emerge will be taken less seriously and be less dangerous. We can always hope. That's the problem, of course, that new ones simply sprout up and hurt us all - esp. from the south, unfortunately. Maybe it will change someday... some fine day!
Not mentioned in the article is the spell that Helms put on the US that will not allow anybody to win the Presidency if they don't win the South.
Senator McConell, sorry to say is a fellow member of my alma maters in Louisville, KY. He is a sad reminder of J. Helms and his bad attitude; all I can say is RIP. His failures on behalf of women and other minorities will not bode well for his place in history.
Where is he going to be buried? I gotta pee (said like Forest Gump)........
Coffee,,,,,
Good riddance.