Jesse Helms' sense of timing was always keen. From his days as an acerbic TV commentator on WRAL's Channel 5, his decision to change parties and become a Republican in 1970, his decision to run for and to win a U.S. Senate seat for the North Carolina GOP for the first time in the 20th century and his key role in engineering a victory for Ronald Reagan in the 1976 N.C. presidential primary -- a from-behind victory that gave Reagan credibility and momentum to successfully compete for and win the presidency four years later -- Helms was a master of political timing. So Helm's death at age 86 early on the morning of July 4th, the most patriotic national holiday, was a fitting exit for a man who -- love him or hate him -- recognized the moment and seized it often enough to transform state and national politics.
History professor Bill Link recognized this is his recent comprehensive biography of Jesse Helms. One of Link's theses is that Helms has an important place in American politics and that regardless of what you thought about him, there's not getting around how he changed the political world, made it possible for the conservative revolution to come to widespread power in ways that such luminaries of the far right as Barry Goldwater never were able to accomplish, and wound up his career actually getting a few key things done in Congress that surprised his detractors and possibly even dismayed some of his oldest conservative allies.
Here's a link to Bill Link's fine book, "Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism."
