Rob Christensen
Reporter, Columnist and Chief Political Correspondent
Raleigh News & Observer

"How do you square a Jesse Helms who adopted a boy with cerebral palsy with somebody who wants to cut off food stamps for poor children?"

Rob Christensen has covered North Carolina politics for over thirty years at The News & Observer in Raleigh. In his new book, The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics: The Personalities, Elections, and Events That Shaped Modern North Carolina, Christensen ponders such questions as: “How can a state be represented by Jesse Helms and John Edwards at the same time?” The University of North Carolina Press will publish The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics in April 2008. 

Democratic Party Alienating Southern Democrats in 1960s:

"The Democratic Party was moving a lot of directions that were alienating traditional conservative Southern Democrats, whether it was moving to expand government to reach out to the poor with the Great Society programs, whether it was beginning to raise questions about the Vietnam War--you know North Carolina was a very hawkish state--but more than anything else it was because the party was moving away from being the party of segregation." 

Transitional Figure:

"In a lot of ways he was the transitional figure from the old conservative Democrats to Republicans. I mean, he is the fella who would go to Republican rallies, Lincoln Day dinners, and get up there and say, 'And don’t forget about Robert E. Lee.'"

Secret to Direct Mail Success:

"The secret to that is to get people to give over and over and over again. We once took a look at his fundraising operations and there were people who during an election cycle would give like 70 or 80 contributions. So they were giving like weekly, and if they did forget to send in a check, they’d be getting a letter that said, 'Missed hearing from you last week. Are you okay?'"

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Art:

"One of the perfect issues for him was the whole arts issue where you had Robert Mapplethorpe who was made for Jesse Helms because here you had the issue of both homosexuality and you had the issues of your tax dollars going for art that Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith down Johnston County a) didn’t understand and b) if they understood it, they wouldn’t like it. So that was the perfect marriage with Mapplethorpe of both the gay issue and the wasting your tax money issue."

Alleged Racism:

"He would always deny it, and what he’d always say was, 'Look, I have a great relationship with black people. If you don’t believe me, go ask the people that work in the Senate.' And he was talking about, you know, the black policemen or the black elevator operator or the black custodian…. Segregationists always said they liked black people but they liked black people in their place. They liked black people as long as they stepped aside for you on the sidewalk, or they liked black people as long as they were cleaning your house, or they liked black people as long as they were coming up to your back door to ask for food or permission or so forth. And everybody that message was intended for got that message, that he liked black people under the old racial caste system."

A Politician of a Different Era:

"Helms is sui generis. I mean there’s never been anybody like Jesse Helms, and there never, ever will be again. Politics has become way too homogenized. We just don’t elect characters like Helms, nor do we elect people with such strident views and who enjoy political combat over consensus. He was a politician of a different era. I don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of him again."

Patsy Clarke
Co-founder, MAJIC
(Mothers Against Jesse in  Congress)

"I do not hate Senator Helms. Please let me be honest about that. I truly don’t. I do hate what I think he has propagated."

Patsy Clarke was a Jesse Helms supporter through the early '90s, and her late husband had been a Helms advisor.  In 1994, after her son Mark died of AIDS, Clarke wrote Helms asking him not to pass judgment on people with AIDS.  Helms wrote back that he wished Mark "had not played Russian roulette in his sexual activity," and was later quoted saying the disease was the result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct." In response, Clarke and Eloise Vaughn, also the mother of an AIDS victim, established "MAJIC: Mothers Against Jesse in Congress" to oppose Helms’s bid for a fifth Senate term in 1996. 

Her Letter to Helms:

“My reason for writing to you is not to plead for funds, although I’d like to ask for your support for AIDS research. It is not to ask you to accept a lifestyle which is abhorrent to you. It is, rather, to ask you not to pass judgment on other human beings as 'deserving what they get.' No one deserves that.  AIDS is not a disgrace. It is a tragedy.”

Exposing Bigotry and Prejudice:

"We had some people say, 'You're helping Jesse’s campaign because if he's against homosexuality, we’re for him.' Well, that was sort of frightening to us because we didn’t want to defeat our own purpose. Certainly not. But the only way bigotry and prejudice can be annihilated is to be exposed." 

MAJIC’s Impact:

"I remember somebody called me from Richmond and left a message on my machine saying, 'Good for you. MAJIC had an impact after all.' Well, I would love to think that, but I don’t think that. I really don't. I don’t think Senator Helms has changed his mind. The day that he is able to say that gay people have the same rights and the same respect as he expects for himself, then I will think the conversion has occurred."

Changed Views on Heterosexual AIDS in Africa:

"My son one time in response to this kind of attitude said, 'What am I? A criminal?' I think the subtext of that comment is he wants to help and be beneficent towards who he considers 'innocent'--mothers who have been infected by their meandering husbands or what have you, or infected needles, another dreadful thing, or however, but not through homosexual activity. In other words, the way I read his comment is, 'We will cut off our compassion when it gets to the consideration of homosexuality. We will only help those we consider,' and that’s the phrase--'innocent victims.' My son was just as innocent."

Tom Ellis
Former Helms Political Strategist

"What convinced me was that we went to the cafeteria in Hudson Belk and we’d go through the line, and there were some elderly ladies, country ladies, there serving the food and when they’d see Jesse come through there they’d just light up, and so I knew, you know, that he was getting through to the kind of people that would vote and support him."

Tom Ellis was a chief strategist for Jesse Helms and is credited with helping elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency, John East and Lauch Faircloth to the U.S. Senate, as well as elevating his friends and protégés to the federal bench and shaping the modern conservative movement.

Registering Christian Conservatives:

"We did a lot with the churches in North Carolina, and we felt like those people were the natural people to be voting for Jesse Helms, and during that period, the Dobsons, the Falwells, the Robertsons, the Lehays, the Christian community was coming alive and understanding that they had to participate in politics unless they were gonna get blown off the map. And it was a way to bring people to the Lord and so we went out and tried to get every church roster and then run that against the registration and go and hold registrations in the backs of churches, and we just had a program to get Christians to the polls."

Media Attacks:

"They needed a new boy on the block and that was old Jess, and so they just grabbed hold of him and said, you know, 'This guy.' Of course, he’s from the South. He’s conservative. All the bells and whistles of what liberals hate are symbolized in Jesse. He's American.  He’s Christian. He reads the Bible. You know, all of those things are things that the press hates."