William D. Snider - Helms and Hunt: The North Carolina Senate Race, 1984

Some thought the ferocious race for senator from North Carolina between Senator Jesse A. Helms and Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., was the second most important election in the nation. They saw it as a sort of showdown for the soul between the conservative Old South and the progressive forces of the New. Others viewed it as yet another stage in the erosion of the old one-party Democratic South. Still others saw it as simply a southern-fried back-alley brawl, featuring the latest electronic advertising techniques underwritten by the most costly funding in senatorial election history.

As the long and rowdy campaign unfolded in the shadow of the Reagan avalanche of 1984, it was a bit of all these. It was also a flamboyant, often nasty race between two skillful politicians sprung from much the same rural soil but espousing different political and social views.

Many of the senator's admirers considered him a courtly, grandfatherly figure, the nicest man you ever saw. Others viewed him as an unbending right-wing warrior battling the tax and spend liberals or even as an avenging angel come to rescue sinners from their wicked ways. Still others identified him with Ronald Reagan's Morning in America crusade for free enterprise, patriotism, and the Opportunity Society. Not all Helms's supporters liked everything he favoredfor example, stern anti-abortion laws or organized prayer in public schoolsbut they admired his gutsiness, even in pursuit of lost causes. He knew how to send em a message, and they always knew where Jesse stood.

Then there were those who supported Helms because they liked Hunt less. They saw the governor as an overly political, wishy-washy opportunist mostly identified with tax increases and Yankee liberals on the Democratic ticket. They feared his links with the other Jesse (the Reverend Jesse Jackson) who made we want it all demands at home and anti-administration tirades abroad. They disliked Hunt's tight-knit political organization, which had become entrenched and a bit careless after eight years in power.

The governor's admirers, a substantial majority of the populace as the race began, remembered his dedication to educational and economic uplift over a whole decade of Tar Heel history. They liked his crisp, pragmatic gubernatorial leadership, his conservatism on economic issues, his moderation on social issues, and his conviction that government is a partner not an enemy. They considered him a superb ambassador beyond North Carolina's borders, radiating the optimism of a born leader. It was evident to them that Hunt's Bible Belt upbringing had imbued him more with the New Testament teachings of the Sermon on the Mount than with the thunderings of Old Testament prophets about false gods. While the governor's supporters differed among themselves about his stands on some issuesthe nuclear freeze, capital punishmentand whether he was too political or too pious, in sum they thought he championed the vision of a forward-looking North Carolina.

There were also those who supported Hunt because they liked Helms less. They viewed the senator as self-righteously hypocritical, using religion for political purposes. They remembered his role in Willis Smith's defeat of Dr. Frank Graham in the 1950 senatorial race and blamed him for igniting racial feelings, both then and now. They deplored his vision of America as a society besieged by conspiratorial forces both inside and outside the gate and charged him with stirring up hatred about a pluralistic society and caring only for those of his own kind. They feared his ideological intensity and his affinity for right-wing figures abroad and fundamentalist preachers at home. They disliked the way, as one of them put it, he contaminated serious argument with debating points from the gutter and practiced tactics of divide and conquer.

These became the contending forces in North Carolina's 1984 senatorial contest. They represented widely varying constituencies, ranging from the branch-head mountain coves of the west to the highly sophisticated academic and high-tech industrial centers of the Piedmont. Many had cast their votes for both the senator and the governor in different elections of the past. When the votes were cast on November 6, Senator Helms prevailedbut only by a narrow margin.