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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Helms and Hunt: The North Carolina Senate Race, 1984
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| Parent | Parent |
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| Title | Helms and Hunt: The North Carolina Senate Race, 1984 |
| ASIN | 0807841323 -
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| Category | Politics |
| Contributor | U Ole Polecat |
| Last Modified | U Ole Polecat - May 07, 2003 10:23am |
| Description | Here is the review from Amazon.com from a person in Winston-Salem, NC.
"As a native of North Carolina, I can still vividly recall the bitter and dramatic 1984 Senate campaign between two of the greatest - and most controversial - political leaders this state has ever produced. On one side was Senator Jesse Helms, then running for his third term. Even in North Carolina Helms has always been an extremely divisive figure, and his victory margins have always been narrow. To Democrats in North Carolina and around the nation, Helms is the political version of JR Ewing on the old "Dallas" TV show - he's the "man you love to hate". An old-fashioned right-wing Republican, Helms refuses to compromise with his opponents, and he is a master of the politics of "divide and conquer". However you feel about him, Helms has never been afraid to be as outspoken as possible about his beliefs (adamantly anti-gay rights, anti-abortion, and pro-school prayer and pro-fundamentalist Christian), and he's also one of the few major politicians in America who doesn't care what his poll numbers are, or what his critics think of him. He is also a master of fundraising - his 1984 campaign was the most expensive up to that time in American history, as he raised an astonishing $14 million, much of it from out-of-state admirers. Helms is also a living symbol of the transformation of the white South from mostly conservative Democrat to hard-right Republican, a process which began in the 1960's with the Civil Rights movement. However, in 1984 Helms appeared to have met his match in James Hunt, the state's first two-term governor. Although not as well known nationally as Helms, Hunt is also a political legend in North Carolina - he has been elected governor four times, each time by a landslide - and, were it not for his narrow loss to Helms in 1984, he might well have become President in 1992 instead of Bill Clinton. Like Helms, Hunt grew up in a small, rural North Carolina town and was raised as a Baptist. But the similarities end there - Hunt went to North Carolina State University and became a leader in student government, became a leader in the Grange (a once-powerful national organization of farmers), spent some time in the Himalayas of Nepal as an agricultural advisor for the Henry Ford Foundation, and finally returned home in the late sixties and became the state leader of the "Young Democrats". In 1972 he was elected lieutenant governor, and in 1976 - at the tender age of 39 - he was elected governor by a record margin. He cleaned up and modernized the state's government, easily won reelection in 1980, and formed a powerful political machine with "contacts" in each of the state's 100 counties. In early 1984 he led Helms by double digits in the polls, and many experts predicted that he would be an easy winner in what was already a much-anticipated showdown with Helms. The race received more media attention than any other campaign in 1984, with the sole exception of the presidential race, and even international reporters came to cover the event. But Helms, relying upon a series of clever yet negative TV commercials, portrayed Hunt not as an honest and effective governor, but as a "wishy-washy" political opportunist who only wanted a Senate seat so he could run for President in a few years. Helms also successfully portrayed Hunt as being "in bed" with liberal national Democrats who were too "far-left" for North Carolina voters. As the election approached Hunt's big early lead vanished and Helms, who tied himself to President Reagan's reelection bid (Reagan carried NC with 62% of the vote), gradually pulled ahead for a narrow victory. As this book by William Snider, the retired editor of the Greensboro "News and Record" newspaper, attests, the 1984 Helms-Hunt matchup had everything - mudslinging and personal attacks, vast sums of money raised by both camps, personal feuds and grudges (especially within the state Democratic Party, which hurt Hunt badly), and a series of combative debates which were televised statewide. Although detailed, this book could have used a better editor - there are numerous spelling errors and run-on sentences. However, Snider nonetheless gives what is still the best in-depth account of a classic "Southern-fried" Senate race. Recommended!" |
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