From staff, wire reports
At Fourth of July parades and barbecues around the Tar Heel state, Jesse Helms’ supporters recalled the father of the conservative movement as the man who stood up for traditional values and the defeat of Communism ó but still had time to help his constituents.
Salisbury’s Dr. Ada M. Fisher, a Republican candidate for the N.C. House District 77, said in a release, “How fitting it seems that one of this nation’s patriots, Sen. Jesse A. Helms, died on this day, for it must be said, love him or not, he stood firm in his allegiance to this country and demanded that we follow the dictates of the United States Constitution, as well as play by the established rules and laws whether in Congress or other avenues of the public arena.”
“I will always remember him as the go-to guy if you wanted to get something done. Jesse Helms gave constituent service like no other before him or since.”
Betty Bowles, 65, selling fireworks under a tent on Wilmington’s main thoroughfare praised Helms this way: “I just remember him not taking junk from anybody. I think it’s ironic that he went on the Fourth of July, because he was a firecracker.”
Detractors of Helms, who died Friday at 86, said they’ll remember his caustic style, opposition to school integration and lack of early sympathy toward the AIDS crisis that made him the No. 1 adversary of liberals.
“He more or less held back progress in North Carolina in racial issues, and the nation,” said Al Beatty, 57, of Leland, waiting for a ride in downtown Wilmington. “He played the race game.”
Helms, whose health had deteriorated since leaving the Senate in early 2003, was a police chief’s son from Monroe whose 30-year career on Capitol Hill made him the state’s most famous ó or infamous ó politician. He brought international attention to North Carolina as the home of the firebrand called “Senator No.”
He earned the nickname because he often was the lone vote against presidential nominees he found too liberal, and filed anti-abortion legislation and other bills on social issues that had little chance of passage.
He later gained seniority to become chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There, he fought against tobacco legislation he said would hurt growers, nuclear weapons treaties he found too restrictive and bureaucracy in the State Department. But to Republicans or conservative Democrats, Helms was their standard-bearer and helped raise the cause nationwide.
“When the Democratic Party sort of moved to the left in the 1960s, I think that a lot of conservative Democrats felt like they lost their voice, and eventually that led to the realignment of the Republican Party,” said Carter Wrenn, who worked with Helms for 20 years as a leader of his political machine, the Congressional Club.
Helms wasn’t afraid to chide fellow Republicans, including another father of that realignment ó President Ronald Reagan ó for veering away from conservative principles. And at the state level, he shifted the state Republican Party from its moderate roots based in western North Carolina to a more hard-line stance that remains to this day.
“Whether you agreed with him or not on issues, it never affected his personal relationship with you,” said Bill Cobey, a former congressman and state GOP chairman. “He believed he had a right to stand for what he believed in, and he believed you did too.”
Helms was elected to the Senate in 1972 thanks in part to the coattails of Richard Nixon’s presidential landslide.
But Helms never won by landslides himself in 1972 or in later re-election bids. The rule went that Helms always started off with 45 percent of the vote and his opponent had another 45 percent. It was the 10 percent remaining that he had to persuade.
His views, whether against big government, civil rights legislation or opposition to taxpayer-funded art he found offensive, resonated with North Carolina voters and generated a solid voting base, said Mike Munger, a political science professor at Duke University.
“He spoke directly to the white middle classes and lower classes in the way that very few Southern Democrats have,” Munger said. “He was one of them.”
He will be remembered for his epic re-election campaigns against former Gov. Jim Hunt and former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt. “I knew him as a very considerate and very compassionate person. He had such pride in his staff, and would talk about what a great job they were doing, “said Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who succeeded Helms in office. “He was so concerned about young people and trying to get them to reach their full potential.”