Growing up in Wisconsin, I "knew" more about Helms than I did about the senators of most other states, knowledge that came from The New York Times and other national media outlets.

I couldn't imagine why a state would elect this man.

It wasn't just his politics that I found so abhorrent, the race-baiting and gay-bashing.

It was his style. He seemed so combative, so unabashed. So mean.

It was with trepidation that, a year after moving to North Carolina, I found myself drafted to cover the Senate race between Jesse Helms and former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt.

The first time I saw the senator in action was at a rally in an old gymnasium in Alamance County.

Helms started out by carping at the media -- for a former journalist, he always did a good job of painting the press as the "them" in "us vs. them."

But the topic of the day was federal support for a "pro-hom-O-sexual" and anti-Christian photographer named Robert Mapplethorpe.

I listened to Helms rail, in most predictable fashion, against the "homosexual lobby."

But in that old-fashioned gym, I also glimpsed the man The New York Times never fully described. Courtly offstage, engaging and funny on. In short, he was a delight.

In and around his rantings, he told hilarious tales about his trials and travails as a senator.

The story that sticks in my mind most clearly was about his dear friend Hubert Humphrey, a liberal senator from Minnesota who, as vice president, ran unsuccessfully for president in 1968.

By Helms' telling, Humphrey was the last man in America who honestly believed he was going to win the presidency.

The night before the election, Helms related in his patented mumble, Humphrey told his wife: "Tomorrow, you're going to sleep with the next president of the United States."

Humphrey's wife looked at him quizzically.

"How's that going to work? Is he coming over here, or am I going over there?"

Helms delivered the punch line with glee, and the crowd roared with laughter.

He told story after story; he also talked about his core beliefs, about God and family and the goodness of America.

At the end of the evening, some of Helms' campaign staff handed out binders containing copies of some of the Mapplethorpe photos to men in the audience.

When I requested a copy, the staffer balked. They weren't fit for a lady's eyes.

I pressed, and finally he shrugged, presuming, I suppose, that no self-respecting "lady" would be a reporter.

I paged through; I wasn't particularly shocked.

The bigger revelation of the evening came in listening to Helms' storytelling -- in seeing the way he talked to voters.

Later in that campaign, we saw the dastardly "white hands" ad that showed white hands holding an employer's rejection letter while a voice warned against affirmative action. Many observers believe that ad tipped the scales in Helms' race against Gantt, who is black.

Still, in that Alamance County gymnasium, I learned a lesson about politics and personality. I finally understood, at least in part, why North Carolina elected and re-elected Jesse Helms. God rest his soul.