Crazy racist, and, unlike Byrd, proud of it.

hasn't this old right wing fart died yet?

Ultra-fascist religious fanatic nutcase!

How can I put this: The ultimate cracker. A cruel, humorless, bigoted villain, and a tool of the tobacco industry.

I remember when Carol Moseley Braun was elected Senator and he said, I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries. Hes a dispicable man.

I disagreed with his stands on issues. Having said that, I have heard several people from North Carolina, who are very liberal democrats say that when they needed serious help, he was the only one who would help them.

Helms was a race-baiter, but was right on the Cold War.

He became very influential, and that suprises me. He started out in an orbit beyond Pluto, but managed to have a large impact.

A bigoted scumbag. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

He voted his conscience in the Senate for 30 years. He returned money from his office to the US Treasury each year. He did his duty as he saw it, without a eye on the polls.

i don't much care for racists, but that's just me.

One of the last unreconstructed Jacksonians in the US Senate, Jesse Helms was a force to be reckoned with. His politics exemplified the old Southern way of thinking; combine religion with nationalism and strong on traditional values which could mean a lot of things depending on the person. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations committee during part of the 1980's and from 1995-2002. There he kept up the fight against communism in Cuba, free trade agreements and anything remotely 20th Century. Some on this board wonder why he was re-elected so many times down there in North Carolina. He always appealed strongest to older white male voters of both political parties. He was an economic and social populist. Helms retired last year from the Senate, and about time as well.

why is jesse helms opposed to sex-education? because he's had neither

The other Jesse Jackass.

Annoying self-righteous egocentric pig who sounds terrible every time he opens his mouth. He has supported segregation and racism! I wonder who listens to this guy anymore?

Ridiculously bigotted.

Good riddance to that old redneck fossil. Too bad he's not a Hindu: he could come back as a cockroach.

This guy was one of the biggest embarassments in American political history, and an "old and in the way" drag on the progress of this country. People in foreign countries would read his idiotic pronouncements in the newspaper and then write off all Americans as hicks, hayseeds and cretins. In a way, these people made correct assumptions. Helms was a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic moron who managed to fraud his way into that useless and increasingly irrelevant Old Boys' Club known as the U.S. Senate, and then continued to hoodwink his imbecilic constituency in North Carolina in his rise of the top. Sorta like cream in a milk bottle, or scum on a pond, or a turd in the terlet. His parochial and backward-thinking positions on geopolitical issues and the influence he brought to bear on U.S. foreign policy set back the best interests of this country. Big time, as our fraud of a Vice President would say. I really can't, for the life of me, despite all best efforts to probe my memory, remember a single good thing this dimbulb ever did for this country, a single significant piece of legislation be authored, a single worthwhile cause or issue he championed. Seemed all he did was drag his feet on civil rights, condemn queers, assign women a second class citizen status, attack liberals, insult the U.N. and generally confirm the suspicions of reasonable, thinking people in this country that the collective IQ of those rubes living south of the Mason-Dixon is about 56. "Cliche for Cliche" should be his political epitath.

He hates liberals and fags!!!!!

Jesse is my kind of Southern politician: he isn't mealy-mouthed or ambiguous when he identifies the categories of human beings he hates - pro-choice feminists, gays/lesbians, "pointy-headed liberals," and so forth. He spells out his biases and prejudices in capital letters, and has never claimed that he was "quoted out of context" when questioned about even the most objectionable views. Except for possibly Senator Santorum, Helms is almost the last of a dying breed of populist-demagogue politician.

The essence of republicanism.

Well! Maybe it's me, but I detect just an itty, bitty, teensy weensy feeling of disdain for good 'ole Jesse. Yeah, he is scary, and clearly represents the early 1900's style thought process. Slap a hood and white sheet on this antique, and you gots a veritable potpourri of southern charm!

Gotta love a state that elects a creep who says a woman can't get pregnant when she's raped because "the juices aren't flowing."

This is the kind of crap that got me away from politics, he is closed minded, no hearted and really should bite the big one right now!