The Old South vs. the New

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As Election Day approaches, a number of contests around the nation are proving especially significant. To assess the chances of Senate, House and gubernatorial candidates and help shed light on local and state issues, TIME this week begins regular coverage of some key races of the campaign.

Challenge to a rightist

On the morning of its 30th anniversary, Northside Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., was filled with more than 3,300 well-groomed parishioners and visitors. At the lectern, Republican Senator Jesse Helms, avatar of the Moral Majority, gazed out approvingly at the congregation. These were Helms' kind of people: religious, conservative, white. "We live in a time when secular humanism is demanding that our nation divest itself of religion," intoned Helms. "There is a cacophony of voices—political, news media, television, movies—mocking the very moral and spiritual base from which America came to be a great nation." The speech was typical of Helms' campaign style: short and calculated to reinforce a "them vs. us" position. There was no hint that Jesse Helms, 62, in the U.S. Senate since 1972, is now fighting for his political life.

That night Helms and James Hunt, 47, the Democrat who hopes to wrest away his seat, met in the second of four scheduled television debates. It was a battle of the Old South vs. the New. Hunt is North Carolina's popular, two-term Governor, an earnest, mild-mannered and moderate Democrat. He favors voluntary school prayer and a sustained military buildup, but supports civil rights and a woman's right to abortion. As Governor he has attracted $13 billion in new business investment, added 207,000 new jobs and raised educational standards through a series of reforms. In that evening's debate, Helms claimed that Hunt's "entire career as Governor has been based on flip-flops and contradictions when tough issues arise." Hunt exclaimed: "How far back do you want to take us—20, 30, 50 years? This is a state that is making progress, Jesse. You're just out of touch with it."

The Helms-Hunt battle is this year's most ferociously contested Senate race. A year ago a poll rated Hunt 19 points ahead of Helms. Recent polls, however, show the candidates in a virtual dead heat. If Helms triumphs and Senator Charles Percy loses his re-election bid, Helms could succeed the Illinois Republican as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a scenario that distresses liberals and moderates. A victory might even make Helms a presidential prospect in 1988. For Hunt, a victory could result in his being anointed as leader of the progressive South.

With the stakes so high, the contest has developed into an uncommonly vicious, gloves-off slugfest. The Hunt organization early this summer ran a television advertisement linking Helms to the right-wing death squads in El Salvador. The commercial opened with the sound of gunfire and photos of massacred Salvadoran citizens. A picture of Salvadoran Roberto d'Aubuisson appeared, and a narrator identified him as "the man accused of directing those death squads." A picture of Helms then appeared, and the narrator said, "This is the man whose aides helped D'Aubuisson set up his political party in El Salvador . . . Now Jesse Helms may be a crusader, but that's not what our Senator should be crusading for."