Obama, Huckabee, and McCain - and Jesse Helms?

By D. G. Martin
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2008

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Chapel Hill, NC - How can a former North Carolina senator help us understand the surprising recent upsurge in the strength of several presidential candidates?

You might think the former senator I have in mind is presidential candidate John Edwards. No, it’s the example of Jesse Helms who might give us that help. Last week, a long-time Helms supporter showed me the connection between Helms and the surging candidates.

“What is the common thread,” he asked, “that runs through Obama, Huckabee, and McCain—and might be missing in the others? It is a thread that ran through Jesse Helms, too.”

I had to think about it for a minute. “It’s not just the ‘change’ thing,” I said. “All the candidates are talking about change. And Jesse surely was never much for change.”

“No,” he agreed, “it is not change. There is something about each of them that comes across as genuine and believable. I support Huckabee, in large part because of his views on issues, some things that he and I and maybe Senator Helms would all agree about, and things that the mainline Republican establishment might not like. But I am not talking about issues. Huckabee projects something that goes beyond the issues, something that makes me think he is comfortable with himself, and would be comfortable with me, whether or not we saw political issues the same way.”

“What about Obama?” I asked.

“I don’t agree with Obama,” he said. “But I believe that he is real. When he talks, I feel like he is including me even if I don’t agree with him. He is the kind of guy I could go to with a problem. And I would get a warm reception. The same with McCain. He is not my candidate, but I trust him to be himself. He shows a comfort level with who he is and seems to say that he would help me if I ever needed help.”

“All this makes sense,” I said. “But what does Jesse Helms have to do with it? He was mean spirited, confrontational, and divisive. And he was never in the business of making everybody comfortable.”

“I think there is something about Jesse that you don’t understand. On political issues, yes, he was a fighter. I will grant you that. But when it came to helping people and projecting helpfulness, he was something else. And when you saw him in action, even at his feistiest, you thought you knew that you were seeing the real Jesse. It was genuine, and he came across as genuine. And lots of people who didn’t agree with Jesse’s issues or his way of dealing with them still liked him because they thought that Jesse Helms was real. Without that quality, Jesse might not have been elected to the U.S. Senate four times.

“It is a quality that Obama, Huckabee, and McCain share with Helms. That quality gives them an edge over their competitors. And I would never bet against any of them.”

Certainly there is a “common thread” that is an appealing part of the personality and character of Obama, Huckabee and McCain. But I will have to think about whether or not it was also an important part of Jesse Helms’ appeal to voters.

I will keep this question in mind as I read a new biography of Helms that is coming out in a few weeks (“Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism” by William Link).

In an introduction to his book that is already available for reading on the web (http://williamalink.com/warrior/helms_intro.pdf ), Link gives a glimpse of Helms’ human qualities that sometimes won the admiration even of opponents. Link tells the story of how former senator and star basketball player, Bill Bradley, felt after he shot baskets with Helms’ granddaughter, at Helms’ request. Watching a “beaming” Helms on the sidelines, Bradley said it was a lesson for him. Link writes that Bradley “found it difficult to regard Helms as ‘the personification of evil.’ Rather, he saw him as a grandfather, a person, something other than a ‘cardboard cutout.’”

Something other than a cardboard cutout: Obama, Huckabee and McCain and Helms?

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D.G. Martin is the host of UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Fridays at 9:30 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch/. Check his blog and view prior programs at www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch/