Helms' last hurrah? Coalition support gives Gantt a good chance to oust GOP senator in North Carolina

by Les Bayless

This article was reprinted from the June 29, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Conventional wisdom says that for a challenger to unseat an incumbent Republican he or she must take "me too" positions. Especially if it's a Senate race in the South and the incumbent has a $17 million campaign war chest.

Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt is defying that "wisdom," however, and may be on his way to becoming the first African American from the south in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

After easily defeating white businessman Charlie Sanders in the Democratic primary, Gantt has been crisscrossing the state, telling audiences he will fight to increase the minimum wage and provide economic security for working families. Gantt has promised to eliminate tax breaks for companies that export jobs, increase Head Start funding and job training and make severance pay tax free as part of his economic program.

There are already indications that the 1996 Senate race in North Carolina may not be a replay of 1990, when the incumbent, extremist GOP Sen. Jesse Helms, defeated Gantt with an onslaught of racist TV commercials in the last two weeks of the campaign.

In the recent primary, Gantt defeated Sanders in several predominantly white rural counties in eastern North Carolina that are considered "safe" territories for Helms. Sanders ran his campaign on the theme that Gantt, an African American, couldn't defeat Helms. Six years ago, many of these counties went to Gantt's main Democratic opponent, Mike Epstein, who is white.

Getting a healthy percentage of working class votes in these counties is key to a Gantt victory. Observers point out that organized labor and the African American voters make up only about a third of the electorate.

Six years ago, Gantt's campaign was treated as something of a novelty. Not anymore. The News & Observer, a leading newspaper in Charlotte, editorialized that "Democratic voters seem to share Harvey Gantt's belief that his campaign in 1990 was the foundation for victory over Jesse Helms this year. There are good reasons to agree that this may well be the case."

The editorial went on to say that Gantt "has had a consistent grasp of the kitchen-table issues that concern Tar Heels as much as they did in 1990. Worries about [economic concerns] matter a great deal this year, no less among those who in past elections may have thrown their votes to Helms." The editorial was entitled, "Yes, he can win."

In a wide-ranging interview with the World, Lisa Mortment, who is Gantt's press secretary, said Jesse Helms doesn't speak for North Carolina any longer, if he ever did.

"I think the people of North Carolina are looking for a senator who's going to be on their side," she said. "I think they're going to be looking for a senator who'll be on the side of working families. They'll be looking for some who'll increase their financial security," I interviewed her at Gantt's Charlotte campaign office.

The Republican legislative agenda, their Contract on America with tens of billions in Medicare and Medicaid cutbacks is a major issue in the campaign, she said. Helms supported the "Contract" to the hilt. "The people want someone who will go to Washington to fight for us," she said. "They've had a small taste of the Republican Congress since 1994 and it scares the hell out of them."

Asked about the racist campaign that Helms waged in 1990, Mortment promised an aggressive response from the Gantt camp. "Harvey Gantt is six years tougher and six years wiser and we'll be prepared," she said.

One 1990 commercial showed a white worker crumpling a letter from a employer as an announcer said, "You needed the job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt thinks it is." That style of racist fearmongering has been Helms' stock in trade.

Far more insidious was a letter sent to every African American voter on the eve of the election. Using obscure language from the voter registration form, it warned that "falsification" of the form was grounds for fines and imprisonment. The implication of the letter was that a simple mistake, such as a unreported address change, could be grounds for criminal penalties. It was a clear example of a dirty trick by the Helms campaign.

During his 26 years in Congress, Helms has consistently voted against labor, civil and human rights and the environment. He has so polarized fair, democratic-minded voters that the anti-Helms movement is mushrooming all over the state.

Organized labor is mobilizing statewide to defeat Helms, and for good reason. In 1995, Helms had a "0" AFL-CIO voting record. His life-time record is 10 percent, according to the AFL-CIO's legislative department in Washington.

Helms scores goose eggs with environmentalists as well, according to Clean Up Congress, a pro-environment group active in North Carolina.

Spokesperson Jim Amspatcher said, "Jesse Helms has the worst environmental record of any senator. He did not vote right one single time."

Amspatcher said that both Helms and Gantt seem to have a solid 45 percent of the vote. The swing vote will be new voters in the state, about 600,000 according to recent figures. Many of these new voters are in upper or middle income families who may be embarrassed by Helms' backward, anti-environment, pro-tobacco, segregationist policies, he said.

Clean Up Congress was active in Virginia in defeating Oliver North. It was also active in Georgia in 1992, almost pulling off a miraculous upset of Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary.

A new voting bloc in North Carolina are gay voters, who are solidly behind Gantt. A spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign in Raleigh said that the HRC has targeted 150,000 voters to mobilize on election day. Both Clean Up Congress and the HRC are organizing public, anti-Helms rallies to keep the issues before the public.