Wordless Wednesday: Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (1921-2008)
Wednesday July 9, 2008
RALEIGH, NC: Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby walks toward Hayes Barton Baptist Church for the funeral of former North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms on July 8, 2008. Helms, a long-time Senator and conservative firebrand, died last week at 86.
Jesse Helms in March 2001.
Bottom Photo © Alex Wong/Getty Images
Comments
i am sorry to speak ill of the dead, but, having lived in north carolina for 6 years while he was senator, i can’t shed a tear for helms.
i moved to durham in 1979, and in the ‘80 election witnessed the helms machine get john east elected to the senate against a solid and popular then governor jim hunt. the entirety of the east/helms campaign was calling hunt a “Liberal”, as if that were a biblical curse. no justification for the label, nothing positive about east. just “Liberal”. that was my first exposure to the evolution of nastiness in politics. the race-baiting. the Know Nothings (in both senses of that phrase, the 19th century political party and the literal definition - dumb). whatever kind of man he was in private, he played ugly politics, of the kind that haunts this country today.