Did "White Hands" Do Helms's Dirty Work?
Reexamining the Final Days of the 1990 North Carolina Senate Race

 By Addison Godel for Charles Bullock's "Southern Politics" Course

"You needed that 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 says it is.  Gantt supports Ted Kennedy's racial quota law that makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications.  You'll vote on this issue next Tuesday.  For racial quotas: Harvey Gantt.  Against racial quotas: Jesse Helms."

So runs the narration of one of the most infamous advertisements ever employed in a campaign for the United States Senate.  Of course, this is Jesse Helms's infamous "white hands" commercial from his 1990 re-election bid against challenger Harvey Gantt, self-proclaimed liberal, former mayor of Charlotte, and, oh yes, African-American man.  As the above text was spoken, the television viewer saw a pair of light-skinned hands holding (then dejectedly crumpling) a piece of paper held over a humble, worn workingman's desk.  The message could not have been any clearer: Harvey Gantt will take your jobs and give them to undeserving Negroes, and that just ain't right, now is it?

The ad debuted on Thursday, November 1, 1990 - less than a week before Election Day in the midst of what had become an exceedingly heated race.  As Helms had been polling behind Gantt for some time before the ad, and ended up winning the contest by a very substantial margin, many national commentators at the time, and since then, pointed to the ad as the key to it all.  Helms, in what soon became the conventional interpretation of the race, had won by a last-minute race-baiting masterstroke, a vicious dirty trick of an ad that played on white voters' meanest prejudices and ignorance about the Kennedy-Hawkins Civil Rights Act.

This interpretation is not far off from reality, but it misses many of the subtleties of the race, which revolved around more than race-baiting.  There were substantial ideological differences between the two challengers, and neither one attempted to hide that fact.  Each was gambling on the exact character of the "New South" and what kinds of values North Carolina's many new voters might express.  The national political context of the 1990 challenges is also worth taking in mind.  But most significantly, the "white hands" ad, for all the press it got (within North Carolina and beyond) was merely one piece of a much larger and equally ugly negative campaign conducted by Helms in the last weeks of the campaign.  Race-baiting was undoubtedly an aspect of this campaign, but Helms played on other voter fears as well.

The goal of this paper is to understand that final turnaround week of the Helms-Gantt 1990 contest in as full a way as possible, without simply resting on the explanation that the "white hands" ad was the silver bullet that brought Gantt down.  The focus will be on primary documentation from the last week of the campaign, using the University of Georgia's microfilm archive of the Charlotte Observer as a major source.  Of course, this approach has some problems: the Observer, as not only an urban newspaper but one from the town which once elected Gantt as mayor, may be biased in favor of Gantt.  Furthermore, the UGA archives of the paper end with 1990, which sabotaged my original plan to compare this campaign's materials with those from the Helms-Gantt rematch of 1996.  I feel that these disadvantages are outweighed by the utility of being able to draw from a local source published at the time of the campaign; even on election day there was already talk of how national media sources may have misrepresented the race - a news feature discusses with obvious frustration the coverage by CNN and the networks which, in the writer's opinion, depicted the outcome of the race as determined primarily by scare tactics and race-baiting, not something "more complex at work."^[1]  Looking at the election from the battleground viewpoint of newspaper materials, with various secondary sources as backup, may offer a more complete picture of the nature of Helms's victory.

Race in the Campaign's Last Days: White Hands and Beyond

But still, we must begin with that infamous "white hands" advertisement.  A casual reader of political writing or casual listener to political discourse may wonder what the big deal is.  After all, racial quotas would be a bad thing, right?  Whether it is fair to characterize the Kennedy-Hawkins Civil Rights Act as leading to quotas is the first question, and it is a complicated policy question outside the scope of this paper.  For our purposes, let it be said that this was a question on which reasonable people nationwide disagreed, and that there is no indication that any of the bill's supporters (who did include Gantt^[2]) thought it entailed or would lead necessarily to quotas or that such an outcome would be a good thing.  Helms's ad may thus be safely described as, at best, a very unflattering depiction of the bill, and at worst a deliberate mischaracterization.  Jonathan Rauch suggests that the problem is one of philosophy, that the "white hands" campaign appealed to an unrealistic "zero-sum" view of politics: "If blacks win, whites lose. […]  In fact, affirmative action is a problematic policy that in some cases does discriminate against whites and that its supporters should be called upon to defend. The trouble with the ad […] was that it strengthened rather than weakened racial preferences by presenting a false, zero-sum choice: Blacks (or whites) win, so whites (or blacks) must lose."^[3]  The ad implicitly presents the 1990 Civil Rights bill as a precursor to a race war in which it's every race against every other - it is an attempt to reframe the campaign in racial terms on an emotional level.

It is crucial to recognize that the "white hands" ad was by no means the only way in which Helms brought race into the campaign at the last minute.  While the "minority issue" was often couched in other terms, it was clearly a major theme.  We will now take a look at some of the other racially themed campaign tactics Helms employed.

Other Quota Advertising 

The "white hands" ad, though widely seen (no doubt in part due to its being featured in news sources as a subject of controversy) was not a fluke: Helms and company made a broad and deliberate attempt to link Gantt with racial quotas by way of the 1990 Civil Rights bill.  Consider the text of this blistering, stark, full-page ad in the Charlotte Observer, run on November 2, 1990:

ONE VOTE … can make a difference!  BY a SINGLE VOTE, the Senate defeated Ted Kennedy's Quotas Bill to require employers to hire or promote based on race, rather than qualifications.

The CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OPPOSED THE QUOTA BILL: "EMPLOYERS WILL IMPOSE A QUOTA SYSTEM AND REQUIRE THAT HIRING DECISIONS BE BASED ON RACE"

After racial quotas lost by one vote, Harvey Gantt declared, "… if Harvey Gantt were in the United States Senate today, it would have gone a different way."Harvey Gantt joined Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force for quotas - not qualifications - in hiring and promotions.

<photograph, accompanied by the caption: "Harvey Gantt accepts check from Jesse Jackson at Washington, DC fund-raiser.">

NO WONDER TED KENNEDY, JESSE JACKSON, AND THE GAY RIGHTS LOBBY ARE GIVING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO ELECT GANTT.

HARVEY GANTT'S for QUOTAS….  TOO LIBERAL FOR NORTH CAROLINA!

Sponsored by DEMOCRATS FOR JESSE

Paid for by Helms for Senate

This bombastic ad plays on a number of themes - gay-baiting, populism, Gantt as "too liberal" - some of which we'll be returning to later.  For now, the most interesting thing is the reference to the Kennedy-Hawkins Civil Rights Bill as "Ted Kennedy's Quotas Bill" and alternately "The Quota Bill." This interesting turn of phrase is understandable - it's hard to get too worked up over someone supporting a Civil Rights Bill, but a Quotas Bill?!  The repeated linkages to Jesse Jackson are also interesting, given Jackson's status to many moderate-to-conservative whites as a symbol of racial extremism and "reverse discrimination."  The Helms campaign (ostensibly, "Democrats for Jesse," a rather daring front-name to use in an ad "paid for by Helms for Senate) doesn't just tell us that Gantt is supported by Jackson - we even get a picture of Gantt accepting a check from Jackson!  The playing of the race card here could not be any more plain.

It is probably worth noting, incidentally, that the quota issue was framed in such a way that it could feasibly appeal to blacks as well as whites.  An editorial published November 4, 1990, tells of a man who telephoned the newspaper and "asked if Harvey Gantt favored racial quotas in hiring.  He said he was a black man, but that he didn't think anybody ought to have to hire him because he was black."^[4]  In the election, Gantt picked up 7% of the black vote - was it because of the misleading portrayal of Gantt's opinions of the Civil Rights bill, or were these just conservative blacks anyway?  It's hard to say.

The TV Station Deal

About a day after the debut of the "white hands" ad, Helms began pounding on Gantt for his role in the purchase and sale of a local TV franchise.  Helms implied that the minority-controlled group which purchased the franchise (of which Gantt was a member) was able to purchase it because of their minority status, and that they then sold it at a profit, in effect cheating the system.  While the FCC asserted that no impropriety had been involved, Helms kept on the issue, repeatedly referring to Gantt as a liar for his treatment of the subject: "Harvey Gantt became an instant millionaire, and he denies that.  This guy can't tell the truth about anything."  The use of the phrase "instant millionaire" here is suggestive - it implies a get-rich-quick scheme, underhandedness, and given the context, the abuse of the system.  Given the larger context of the racial-quotas issue which Helms was now hitting hard on, his supporters were able to get the message.  Consider this quote from a Helms supporter interviewed by the Charlotte Observer at a Helms event:

"I'm not voting for any nigger […] I'm from the old school. […] I'm still a segregationist. [His "many black friends" are] honest and straight.  Gantt, he got a TV station for black people, sold it and put the money in his pocket.  That's not straight."

Or this one:

"I'm sure it had a lot to do with minorities […] The government is set up on minorities.  Minorities are the majority.  I'm not a racist, but in a lot of jobs, in a lot of things, white people are the minority now."^[5] 

Intentionally or not (I suspect intentionally), Helms was touching on his core constituency's anxieties and prejudices about race and power.  Even when the campaign made its appeal ostensibly on the basis of character and issue questions (Gantt is dishonest, Gantt is too liberal), race was often running through the campaign as an undercurrent.

Other Racial Factors

There were other racial tactics employed in the last days of the campaign, but they have proven more difficult to document.  One Helms ad apparently asserted that Gantt was "a secret campaign" on black radio stations - a confusing claim to be sure, and one whose exact text I have not located.  In a personal appearance, Helms said that the black voters of Charlotte turned Gantt out of his mayoral office^[6] - which is incorrect since black voters gave tremendous support to Gantt in all his mayoral bids.^[7]

Also, there is the matter of a suspicious mailing conducted by the state Republican Party a week before the election.  One hundred and fifty thousand postcards were sent to voters throughout the state warning them that they must have lived in their current precinct for 30 days "or you will not be allowed to vote."  While the party claimed that they were simply trying to inform voters of the law, the cards were clearly misleading: having recently moved just means you can't vote in the precinct you just moved to, if you haven't changed your voter registration.  While this tactic cannot be directly linked with Helms, and unlike the above-discussed ads, is not an attempt to bring white conservatives firmly out to the polls for Helms, it was referenced as playing on racial tensions by some at the time.  A Gantt campaign staffer who hadn't moved in eight years received one of the "targeted" mailings (supposedly sent to people who had recently moved - notably, a third of them went to African-American voters) and speculated that as a result of the tactic, "here will be some intimidated so they won't vote.  That's what it's designed for.  It's just something to intimidate black and minority voters on Election Day."  While the impact of the postcards is hard to measure and hopefully was minimal, they are certainly reminiscent of the whole hideous host of intimidating Old South tricks designed to push down black turnout. 

"Too Liberal For North Carolina"

Gantt, for his part, did not blame his defeat entirely on the racially themed advertising, but believed that it had been a factor.  "I don't want to go back and say, 'You know, hey, I was black and I didn't win," Gantt said on election day, later adding, "This would have been a great victory had we overcome […] very open and blatant attempts to scare the people of North Carolina."^[8]  It is, indeed, probably too simplistic to say that the election was decided on race alone.  Certainly the voters didn't seem to think so - only 10% of voters - half of these black, half white - in exit polls claimed that race was the "biggest" factor in their decision.^[9]  The issues that mattered most, according to ABC exit polls, were abortion and the federal budget.^[10]  The federal budget seems to have been scarcely discussed in the campaign, aside from some scattered ads concerning Gantt's positions on defense spending; abortion, however, was a prominent player and deserves to be addressed in this paper.

Once again, let's take a look at campaign materials.  A newspaper ad run shortly before the election has a "he said / he said" comparison of the candidates, one which comes down hard on Gantt from an anti-choice perspective:

Harvey Gantt opposes requiring parental consent before abortions are performed on young teenage girls.

Harvey Gantt supports the extreme policy which allows abortion for any reason, even as a method of birth control, even in the 6th month of pregnancy.

Harvey Gantt believes abortion should be allowed… "whether for sex selection of whatever reason." (Wilmington Press Conference)

Harvey Gantt would use your tax dollars to pay for abortions. […]

DON'T LET PRO-ABORTION EXTREMISTS SILENCE A VOICE FOR LIFE… HELP THE CHILDREN KEEP THEIR FRIEND!  VOTE FOR: JESSE HELMS […]

The extremely agitative language is what jumps out here.  The pro-Helms ad is going for the gut, talking of "extreme" policies and calling attention to "young teenage girls."  Even the provided pictures of the candidates are notably different - Helms has a stern, forceful expression, as if he's currently on his way to go resist the abortion-rights activists as we speak.  Gantt is relaxed, grinning widely, his head cocked slightly to the side - he couldn't be more cavalier about abortion, or so the ad seems to suggest.  This ad is perhaps not extraordinary, but it should not be ignored either.

The specific claims of the ad, while they were in several cases false or at least misleading, were repeated in various other media contexts.  A Helms radio ad asked, "Should abortion be performed in cases where parents want a boy instead of a girl?  Harvey Gantt says, 'Yes.  That's all right.'"^[11]  Actually, he hadn't said anything of the sort; I have not been able to track down the Wilmington Press Conference transcript (mentioned in the print ad above) which seems to be where this claim comes from, but most likely Gantt made a general statement about abortion being up to the choice of the mother for whatever reason, and the Helms campaign quickly concocted the reason most likely to strike voters as offensive.

As if it weren't enough to mischaracterize Gantt's opinions on the reasons for getting abortions, Helms and company went on to mischaracterize Gantt's opinions on when one should be able to get abortions.  A television spot for the Helms candidacy features a woman asserting that "Harvey Gantt is asking you and me to approve of some pretty awful things - aborting a child in the final weeks of pregnancy." What Gantt actually supported was the continuation of existing laws which permit states to ban very late-term abortions except to preserve a woman's life or health.  Sure, this could be rephrased as asking voters to approve aborting a child in the final weeks of pregnancy, but doing so takes Gantt's opinion out of context to suggest his position is far more radical.^[12]

The point of this is not to simply beat up on the Helms campaign for its trickery, negativity, and misogyny - although certainly it would be a deserved beating - but to point out the lengths the campaign was willing to go to in terms of linking Gantt with a hot-button issue at least as polarizing as race: abortion.  It seems to have been a successful move that made an impression on many voters - at least according to anti-choice activists, anyway.  "We think the abortion issue was critical," asserted one anti-abortion activist^[13]; and again, the ABC exit polls cited above seem to bear this out.

While they were not mentioned as often in the ending days of the campaign, there were other "moral" issues that Helms used against Gantt.  Ads often mentioned, among a host of other charges (almost as a footnote) that Gantt had the support of prominent gay rights groups, to the point of being a "pawn of homosexuals"^[14] - never mind that the same could probably be said of virtually anybody who would run against Helms, the point was to again link Gantt to causes seen as "out of the mainstream."  The only Helms standby not to take a prominent position at this point was the National Endowment for the Arts, which Helms had been busily savaging for some time due to its funding of purportedly obscene (and verifiably homosexual) photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  Perhaps Helms felt he had already exhausted this issue earlier in the campaign; alternately, one might argue that this was one area where Gantt directly turned Helms's attacks against the Senator, asserting that Helms was too concerned with national conservative fixations like the NEA, and not in touch enough with the needs of North Carolinians.^[15]

What Does It All Mean?

That Helms supporters said they voted over issues like abortion and the budget is plausible, indeed unsurprising.  But it may not single-handedly undermine the theory that race matters were the dominant factor in the election's outcome.  Some theorists have suggested that while voters respond with powerful emotion to explicit racialized messages, they are uncomfortable with saying so, because they do not want to appear racist themselves.^[16]  So perhaps these other social issues were a kind of rationalization for North Carolina voters who didn't want to feel like they voted because of the "white hands" phenomenon but were still very much influenced by it.  This explanation seems more plausible when one compares poll results in the days leading up to the election - in which the race was virtually a dead heat^[17] - to the actual election results, a 54-46 knockout.^[18]  Either there was much last-minute mind-changing, or some people did things in the voting booth that they didn't feel like telling the pollsters.

But hold on - there's still so much more to the campaign.  As mentioned at the outset of this paper, Helms and Gantt were profoundly different on a number of issues far more substantive and complex than the matters Helms's campaign materials emphasized.  Gantt deserves a great deal of credit for maintaining a "high road" campaign right up until the end, even in the face of reporters wanting to ask him about the chargers Helms was making.  Gantt tended to simply dismiss Helms's ads as "lies" and move on.  This may have hurt his campaign in an obvious way - like Michael Dukakis in 1988, Gantt let Helms beat up on him through negative ads without much resistance.  It may have hurt him in a not-so-obvious way as well: taking the "high road" meant continuously and explicitly laying out Gantt's policy agenda.  Helms was able to avoid talking about his record and his agenda, but Gantt couldn't - meaning that voters suspicious of Gantt's liberal streak had plenty to hang their hats on, but voters scared by Helms's reactionary stances were given little material to get fired up about.  Gantt's remarks on November 4th, to a crowd of 700, were typical.  He mentioned his opponent only once, but of himself, he said "If you care about people, you can call me a liberal […] If you care about the elderly, call me a liberal.  If you care about people having decent health care and affordable housing […] call me a liberal, because I care about it."^[19]  In a time when "liberal" was increasingly becoming an unspeakable word in politics, this may not have been the most politically sound move for Gantt to make.

In other words, a conclusion is hard to reach on this high-profile and viciously contended contest.  There were many issues in play, and a lot of blood in the water when Election Day finally arrived for North Carolina, and the dust never really settled enough for a satisfactory postmortem.  In my opinion, the main lesson to be learned from all this is sort of an anti-lesson: don't write this election off as simply a race-baiting prizefight.  Without question, the advertising by the Helms campaign did a lot to drive up Gantt's negatives in a very short time (from 15% to 20% of the population having "very unfavorable" impressions of Gantt in scarcely a week^[20]) - but the voters, at least, felt that there were a number of issues in play, driving turnout to record levels and ultimately re-electing Mr. Helms.  Whether Helms needed that job, and whether he was the best qualified - these are unknown, but one thing is clear: the voters of North Carolina did not have to give it to a minority.

Addison Godel,  November 2003
with some revisions August 2006

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