Jesse helms gets cuddly
BARNES, FRED
Jesse Helms Gets Cuddly by Fred Barnes Statesville, N.C. Jesse Helms has pulled off one of the most surprising feats of the 1996 campaign: He's sharply reduced the gender gap that bedevils many...
...Asked again in Statesville, he responds with a question: "Did Harvey tell you to ask about any particular ad...
...You let him get away with murder...
...Helms had nothing to do with the award," the paper said...
...And he relays a message from Graham: America must clean up its act morally before it can solve any other problems...
...Beyond seeking again to reorganize the State Department and opposing Clinton ("I'll be for the opposite of Clinton's initiatives"), Helms isn't specific: "I'm going to have a lot of fun and be busy...
...Like Ronald Reagan, Helms underpolls...
...In private anyway, he's never been the ogre his opponents have cracked him up to be...
...Helms has kinder feelings toward more people in Washington than you'd expect...
...Is this makeover believable...
...Helms frequently bristles...
...Castellanos, then the media consultant, refused, and the ads never appeared...
...He does still zing homosexuals, labor union bosses, and the press, but most of his message is softer and far less polarizing...
...He likes secretary of state Warren Christopher and secretary of defense William Perry...
...That was a warning to me," Helms says...
...Helms begins his stump speeches with a rendition of his recent chat with evangelist Billy Graham and Graham's wife Ruth...
...His meetings with President Clinton have been "delightful...
...If the Clintons could charm us...
...Helms was jarred into lightening his public countenance by the arrival of 600,000 new voters in North Carolina since 1990...
...He's avuncular, sentimental, prayerful...
...Strategists for Helms feared Sanders and proposed to attack him in TV ads during the Democratic primary race...
...Helms, once a TV commentator in Raleigh, contends that the voters learn nothing of value from televised debates...
...For his part, Helms says Sanders would have been a "weak candidate...
...About half are Republicans, but they aren't Helms conservatives...
...Pretty much...
...people are sincere on both sides...
...Helms told me: "I'm not going to go around picking fights...
...He figured they were trying to force him into a debate with Gantt "at a time designated by them, at a place designated by them...
...When asked in Morganton why he has injected race into the campaign with a TV commercial criticizing Gantt for using his minority status to profit from the sale of a television station, Helms testily denies the charge: "I don't have to explain it...
...He declares union bosses are flooding the state with money in hopes of defeating him and killing the state's right-to-work law...
...Then Helms praises young people, recalling a session in his senate office with four college students that ended with a prayer led by a young woman...
...When his daughter, Nancy stuart, accompanied him to a state dinner, she and Hillary chatted warmly and giggled...
...Still, when Sanders lost, the Helms camp breathed easier, and the senator began thinking about what he would do if reelected...
...19, the column said Helms was claiming undue credit for acquiring five helicopters for North Carolina sheriffs from the Defense Department...
...We're so far ahead of where we were in 1990, it's not funny," says Helms...
...So Helms has sought "to lower their resistance," says Castellanos, who left the Helms campaign last spring in a dispute with Edmondson...
...This is what I have to put up with all the time," Helms told me...
...On a personality scale, his favorability is 6 points higher than in 1984 and 17 points above 1990, says Terry Edmondson, Helms's campaign manager...
...Helms hardly comes across as a moderate...
...More interesting than Helms's stump speech is the mini-confrontation with the press that often occurs afterwards...
...A poll by the Helms campaign found many reluctant to vote for him...
...That might have been impossible if Charles Sanders, a chemical company executive, had beaten Gantt in the primary...
...Anything we do in our commercials, that's [called] racist," he says...
...He refused to be interviewed...
...Occasionally he gets the paper to respond to his complaints...
...That law, he says, "is the reason North Carolina has prospered...
...He's likely to win reelection to a fifth Senate term...
...There's more to the story...
...When North Carolina newspapers and TV stations joined in a "civic-journalism" project to cover issues the voters supposedly care most about, Helms stiffed them...
...Helms says he and Hunt didn't speak for three years, and he regretted that...
...Helms, the most unswerving conservative in the senate, has campaigned against type—or at least against caricature...
...He expects to win no more than 1 percent or 2 percent of the black vote...
...He's deempha-sized—but not abandoned—his social conservatism, except on gays, and his popularity has improved, especially among women...
...I've tried not to offend people who don't agree with me," he told the Associated press...
...All those people you see in traffic jams in the Research Triangle are economically where Helms was ten years ago," says Castellanos...
...Now, he's running slightly ahead of Democrat Harvey Gantt, the black ex-mayor of Charlotte and the man Helms beat six years ago...
...And on abortion, he hasn't...
...The real Jesse Helms is a very loving man," echoes Jennifer Knox...
...Socially, they're in the other lane...
...State and local officials confirmed that Helms had interceded with federal officials to get the helicopters," the story said...
...He calls me an SOB in his, and it's boys will be boys...
...Helms hasn't debated since 1984, when he and his Democratic opponent, governor Jim Hunt, sparred bitterly...
...Gay activists once put a 15-ft...
...Homosexuals oppose him, Helms told me, not because he believes their behavior "objectionable" but because he seeks to cut federal support for gay concerns, including what he considers disproportionate funding of AIDS research...
...pretty hokey, but it has helped Helms enormously with women...
...The next day, the News & Observer carried a story in which Helms, several sheriffs, and a state official claimed the senator played a significant role in getting the helicopters...
...Helms hasn't jettisoned any positions or principles...
...And why not...
...Gays and lesbians are also eager to beat him, Helms insists, and he makes no apologies for attacking them...
...Everything I do is injecting race...
...The 75-year-old senator from North Carolina credits a TV spot in which two of his granddaughters appear...
...Helms, an ardent pro-lifer, has also curbed his comments on abortion and has spoken respectfully of his pro-choice opponents...
...far from it...
...With Gantt as his opponent, Helms has made no effort to attract blacks...
...In earlier campaigns, Helms usually trailed a week or two before Election Day...
...He injects race by being black, by that standard...
...His relations with gays are now at a standoff: "They don't like me and I don't like them...
...some voters are embarrassed to say they support him...
...On Oct...
...Later, Helms says he doesn't trust reporters...
...Jesse Helms has pulled off one of the most surprising feats of the 1996 campaign: He's sharply reduced the gender gap that bedevils many Republican candidates, particularly Bob Dole...
...The number he's looking at is 61 percent: If he wins that percentage of white voters, he's in...
...He's simply planed off some of the sharper edges of his persona...
...Now, he and Hunt, who's running for reelection as governor, have cordial relations...
...On social occasions, both the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been "charming to me," he says...
...condom on the roof of his house in the Washington suburbs...
...This is no accident...
...My grandfather is just a kind and caring and warm person," Ellen Stuart says in the ad...
...In public appearances, he's not a rigid, mean, intolerant right-winger...
...Other TV ads aired by his campaign have buttressed the image of a milder, more attentive Helms...
...Helms won by 6 points...
...Reporters gather as Helms shakes hands with supporters, then pop several questions at him...
...Helms is regularly twitted in the "Under the Dome" political column in the Raleigh News & Observer, the paper he detests the most...
...If he seems paranoid, it's because he has real political enemies...
...Some of his advisers worry that gay-bashing may unsettle new voters in the state...
...Separate spots for the Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro media markets touted what Helms has done for those cities (he claimed partial credit for bringing the Carolina panthers football team to Charlotte...
...He concludes with the suggestion that leaders in Washington ought to turn to prayer, too...
...While warming his image, Helms has done little to ease tension with the press...
...We were 9 points down with ten days to go in 1990," says Alex Castellanos, who worked on that campaign...
...My grandfather's just a great guy and I wish everyone could see that," Ellen chimes in...
Vol. 2 • November 1996 • No. 8
