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| Examine major events that shaped, and were shaped by, Jesse Helms's storied career: |
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U.S. Senate Democratic Primary
Between Frank Porter Graham and Willis Smith
(1950)
North Carolina’s 1950 Democratic U.S. Senate primary was a watershed in the state’s history, and the font in which Jesse Helms received his baptism into hardball politics. Officially, Helms was a radio reporter covering the contest between incumbent Senator Frank Porter Graham, the liberal former UNC president, and Willis Smith, a conservative Raleigh attorney whom Helms supported. Despite Smith’s assertions that Graham associated with communist-front organizations, Graham won a strong plurality in the first primary, and Smith all but decided not to call for a runoff. But three Supreme Court decisions furthering desegregation inflamed racial fears, and Jesse Helms encouraged WRAL radio listeners to go to Smith’s home to urge him to call for a runoff. Smith agreed, and the election turned on the fears generated by the race issue. Willis Smith defeated Frank Graham by a narrow margin. Shortly thereafter, Smith appointed Helms to the top job on his Washington Senate staff.
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WRAL-TV "Viewpoint" Editorials
(1960-1972)
In 1960, Jesse Helms accepted A. J. Fletcher's offer to become news director at WRAL radio and television on the condition that he could deliver what he called ''free enterprise" editorials. Helms wrote and read on the air over 2,700 "Viewpoint" commentaries between November 1960 and February 1972. They were televised five times a week at the end of WRAL's evening news broadcast, rebroadcast the following morning, transmitted by the 70 "Tobacco Network" radio stations across North Carolina, and published by newspapers throughout the South. Taking conservative positions on civil rights, busing, crime and foreign relations, Helms became a household name throughout eastern North Carolina and a viable U.S. Senate candidate in 1972. |
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U.S. Senate Race
Between Nick
Galifianakis
and Jesse Helms
(1972)
Because of the notoriety Jesse Helms gained from his “Viewpoint” editorials, conservatives from both parties tried to recruit him to run for office in the late ‘60s. In 1970, Helms became a Republican, and two years later won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. His Democratic opponent was Nick Galifianakis, a liberal, three-term congressman. Trailing in the polls by double digits, Helms and Tom Ellis linked Galifianakis to the unpopular Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, and developed the slogan “Jesse Helms: He's one of us!” which critics saw as an ethnic slur on the Greek name of his opponent, a former Marine born in North Carolina. Richard Nixon carried North Carolina with a landslide 70% of the vote, and Jesse Helms rode his coattails with 54%. |
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Founding of The Congressional Club
(1974)
As Helms was using social issues to become one of the top conservative voices in Washington, his ally Tom Ellis was back in Raleigh dealing with Helms’s remaining 1972 Senate campaign debt of approximately $160,000. Ellis created the North Carolina Congressional Club, and in 1975 he made Carter Wrenn the Club’s director. Working with direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie, the Congressional Club quickly retired Helms’s 1972 debt and would go on to raise over $8 million for Helms’s 1978 Senate campaign, more than any U.S. Senate candidate ever had. It would ultimately become one of the most important political machines in American history, electing three Republican U.S. Senators (Helms, East and Faircloth) and raising almost $100 million before Helms parted ways with the Club in 1994.
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