HB2, 1984 and the ghost of Senator No

Déjà vu seems too genteel a phrase to describe the political atmosphere around here. It feels more like a bad flashback to my adolescence, back to the 1980s and another intense election year. These days I sometimes have to remind myself I’m not reliving 1984 – the actual year or George Orwell’s dystopian novel – over again.

In Monmouth University Polling Institute results released Aug. 24, Roy Cooper led Gov. Pat McCrory by 9 points. That’s 3 points higher than an Elon University poll, conducted back in April, which showed Cooper up by 6 points.

I was a high school junior living with my family in Raleigh in 1984, and along with learning how to drive and studying “The Scarlet Letter,” I got a life lesson about the unpredictable nature of polls and North Carolina voters.

Richard Fausset of the New York Times reported the Elon poll results April 25: “It was Mr. Cooper’s largest lead in the five polls that Elon has conducted in the last year. But November is a long way off, and social issues reverberate in complex ways in a state that has a reputation for moderation but also produced Jesse Helms.”

Fausset was right to call up the ghost of Senator Helms, as his legacy seems to hover in the humid air as November creeps closer.

In 1984, our two-term Democratic governor, Jim Hunt, embodied “New South” progressivism: increasing education funding, attracting technology workers, supporting the arts. He was handpicked to run against the incumbent Helms and started the race more than 20 points ahead in the polls.

When I tuned in to what was happening in the election, I began to realize that almost everything Helms said went counter to what my parents and teachers had taught me about equality and fairness. I wasn’t old enough to vote, but I was shocked into an understanding of how politics could have an impact on me personally.

I pinned a Hunt campaign button onto my jacket and volunteered as an idealistic phone-banker. Over the ensuing months, I watched with a mix of awe and outrage as Helms clawed his way back up in the polls and to eventual victory. The campaign was ugly on both sides, but it’s Helms’ words and TV ads that still ring in my ears. His commercials portrayed Hunt as an indecisive liberal who didn’t stand up for his convictions. They all closed with the same voiceover, intoned in Helms’ signature, Union County baritone, “Where do you stand, Jim?”

Helms served in the Senate until 2001, ratcheting up his reputation as “Senator No,” the beady-eyed caricature brilliantly portrayed in these pages by cartoonist Dwane Powell. Helms relentlessly attacked his favorite targets: left-wing news media, “fat cat” donors, “homosexuals” who played “Russian roulette” with their sexuality, the “obscene” National Endowment for the Arts. During his legendary filibuster of the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, the senator whistled, “The United States doesn’t need more holidays.” Helms won time and again by instilling fear in a segment of the electorate and using that fear to motivate them.

Hate Bill 2

The Rev. William Barber of the NAACP has called up that 1984 version of “Senator No” in his writing and speeches, drawing parallels between that time in our history and the current era of House Bill 2 and the rollback of voting. In remarks at a Moral Monday event last spring, Barber recalled how far Helms trailed Hunt in the polls until the incumbent senator turned up the rhetoric. Barber said, “Hate bill 2 was passed in the spirit of the politics of Jesse Helms reincarnated and designed to use homophobia, race, and class as political wedge issues.”

Jesse Helms took pride in being known as “Senator No,” embracing the nickname as proof of his commitment to conservative ideals. But what kind of legacy is that?

I don’t expect to live in a state where we all agree on everything – but I do want to live in a place where our first instinct is to say yes – to kindness, compassion and respectful dialogue.

Sometimes it seems easier to say “no” – to workers’ rights, to expanded early voting, to access the restroom of one’s choice. But if history has taught us anything, I hope North Carolinians – even the recent arrivals who have no memory of the 1984 election – show up to vote for change and to put that old ghost to rest.

This story was originally published September 8, 2016 at 4:04 PM with the headline "HB2, 1984 and the ghost of Senator No."