Jesse Helms died Friday — fittingly on July 4, though, according to Wonkette's Ken Layne, about a quarter-century too late. The country is now a better place.
The Dixiecrat and longtime North Carolina senator was a driving force in moving the Republican Party away from its Lincolnian ideals and toward race-baiting and a general contempt for the downtrodden. It was dubbed the "Southern strategy," and the phrase was popularized during Richard Nixon's 1968 and 1972 White House runs when he essentially conceded the African-American vote.
Helms won election after election by wooing disaffected, racist whites with his hatred of blacks, gays, brown-skinned immigrants, liberals, etc. All the while he rode along in the pocket of Big Tobacco, passing fat-cat tax breaks that never actually trickled down to the huddled masses. On the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he promoted brutal third-world dictatorships in third world countries when they promoted U.S. Foreign Policy or corporate interests.
Just imagine: 2008 could be the year of the passing of Jesse Helms and the rise of Barack Obama. Maybe there's hope yet.
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