the head of the household, mandatory Christian prayer in the public
schools, and abortion prohibited by amendment to the U.S. Constitu-
tion. According to the Congressional Club, the systematic bias of North
Carolina's news media, especially the major dailies, forces Helms and
his associates to spend millions of dollars on television advertising at
election time in order to set the record straight. North Carolina Demo-
crats hold to a second, conflicting variation on the Helms myth. To
Democratic leaders, the state's electorate, while conservative, is not as
right-wing as Helms is, and Helms wins elections only because he
manipulates the voters with his incessant thirty-second TV spots for
months before Election Day.

In fact, Helms's traditionalist ideology is not shared by most Tar
Heels. But the Democrats are wrong to perpetuate the myth that Helms
has to hoodwink the people to win. He has, after all, been elected three
times to the U.S. Senate. The reality is that a clear majority of white
voters agrees with at least some of his antichange, traditionalist think-
ing. Many fundamentalist Protestants vote for Helms because they
agree with him about abortion, while many corporate executives sup-
port him because he opposes increased government regulation of their
businesses. Just as Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt have consciously de-
cided to be modernizers, Jesse Helms is a traditionalist by choice.

I moved to North Carolina in 1975 from Mississippi. Before that, I
lived in the Middle East ( Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey), West Germany
( Cologne and Frankfurt), and New York City. I spent my childhood in
Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. For me, southern politics, and espe-
cially Tar Heel politics, is more engaging than political life in any of the
other cities and countries I have known. In North Carolina, I enjoy the
interplay of small-town cultural conservatism and the more urbane
culture of midsize cities, the beauty of the mountains and the coast, and
the friendliness of the people. The struggle of North Carolina blacks
and Tar Heel Republicans to gain powerful positions in a state once
controlled by white Democrats is both important and fascinating.

I began studying North Carolina politics in 1976, and over the years
have published numerous articles on the subject in sociology jour-
nals, newspapers, and magazines. Specialists in political sociology, the
branch of sociology where I concentrate my energies, are more often
than the average sociologist in tune with the stuff of everyday politics.

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