Posted on 01/31/2013 5:02:57 PM PST by NKP_Vet
Aside from Ronald Reagan, no one did more than Sen. Jesse Helms to advance the cause of freedom in the world in the past 30 years. President Reagan's contributions - staving off a communist takeover in Central America, denying trade credits and technology to the Communist Bloc, and overseeing a military buildup that ultimately won the Cold War - are well known. But the indispensable role played by the North Carolina Republican, who died July 4th at age 86, may as well be ancient history to many Americans, especially to members of the under-30 You Tube generation, many of whom were not even born when Helms began his Senate career in 1973. It's time for that to change. Helms was a giant in late 20th century American politics, and aside from Ronald Reagan, the most important figure in the modern American conservative movement. You cannot understand American politics today - particularly the sorry state of the Senate - without understanding the contributions of Jesse Helms and the enormous vacuum created by his retirement five and a half years ago.
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I worked on his Senate campaign at my college. He was a great Senator. My daughter even had a Jesse Helms bumper sticker on her tricycle.
He died in 2008 BTW
Of course. That's why Liberals hate Helms so much.
We could use quite a few more Jesse Helms politicians. The Left HATED him, because he was EFFECTIVE.
You didn’t see them going on TV and telling him what he needed to do to win more Hispanic votes, ect. Probably helped that he never lost. lol
I loved him. He was the greatest senator of the last hundred years. I’ll never forget 1990. “Mr. Rather, are ya unhappy? Hello Mr.Rather.” Rather had them cut away in mid address from the senator’s victory celebration after that.
God bless you, Jesse. RIP.
Carter Wrenn and Tom Ellis did a great job keeping Helms in the Senate. It is so sad the conservatives and the GOP could not even keep Obama from winning North Carolina in 08.
Helms was the best Senator ever. We need “Senator No” today.
I really like Senator Helms and one thing, he was very anti-UN and anti-globalist. I remember when he ran against Gantt and some folks in NC mentioned that no one like Madonna from Holly and folks from NY were going to decide who was going to be Senator.
I would like to see a lot of Jesse Helms and Ron Paul in Congress.
Rather despised Helms and predicted early in the afternoon, way before the rural votes in the western part of the state were counted........that Helms was going to lose. Around 11 PM he came back on the air, face as red as a tomato, and said “CBS election control is projecting that Senator Jesse Helms will be sent back to the senate”. I think Rather went on vacation for the next week. I was also always proud of him for standing firm on no federal holiday for MLK. He said King was a communist sympathizer and man of “low morals” and if the FBI was going to keep King’s file sealed for 40 years that meant they were trying to hide something that would embarrass him. Of course he was right. I got to know Mr. Helms, through letters I wrote him when I was on active duty in the military. He read every one of them and signed his name to them. No politician ever supported the military like he did. When I came back to the states in the early 80s I went to Raleigh and met him in person. He was the most humble man in the world and I felt like the luckiest person in the world for getting to meet him in person.
RIP Mr. Helms.
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