Tom Ellis, the Raleigh attorney-mastermind who figured out how Jesse Helms could defeat Jim Hunt had an unusual virtue. The way a lot of folks saw it Mr. Ellis ran Jesse’s campaigns like a dictator. But nothing was further from the truth – Tom Ellis was a ‘listener.’ He’d listen to anybody and everybody.

Once we hired this fellow who was a real devout Christian to write speeches for Jesse. It turned out one of the things that got crossed up with this fellows religion was Santa Claus — so one Christmas he told Jesse he ought to give a speech about how Santa Claus was sacrilegious. He said it standing right in front of Jesse’s house and it stopped Jesse dead in his tracks. Helms stared at him a minute then grinned and said, I believe I’ll pass on that.

But the fellow had the courage of his convictions. When he got nowhere with Jesse, that night he took it up with Mr. Ellis, arguing up a blue streak for an hour, lecturing Mr. Ellis about the political advantages of Jesse dissing Santa Claus. After he left Mr. Ellis looked at me and said, Well, Carter, there are two things everyone has an opinion about: Politics and television.

Another friend just wrote to set me straight about the flap over Jeremiah Wright’s videos. He said, “If you haven’t figured it out yet, Carter, it is about extremism rather than race.”

When I asked Richard, the intellectual, about that he said, Well, I’d say it’s a question of perspective. Like in that book ‘Shogun.’ This English captain gets shipwrecked in Japan and the way the Japanese see it he’s too big, too white and too smelly. To them he’s a barbarian with no manners. To him – after the first time he watched a Samurai chop off someone’s head with one of those two-handed swords – the way he saw it those Japanese were murderous devils. Sort of turned out both were true. That captain really was smelly, literally, because most Europeans back then didn’t believe in bathing more than twice a year – and those Samurai were mean as rattlesnakes.

The only other political genius I’ve known – besides Tom Ellis – was a pollster, Arthur Finkelstein. Arthur almost single-handedly discovered the Panama Canal as a political issue. He used to say, ‘In politics, perception is reality.’ But I think maybe he really meant perspective is reality.

Take this for example: The way Democrats see it the murderous Republicans – like John McCain – want to fight it out in Iraq a hundred years. On the other hand when Obama says he wants to have a nice chat with the Iranians, the way Republicans see it that sounds like a nice chat with Hitler. Perspective adds a lot of spice to politics; a lot of times it’s what the shoutings all about.

What’s more, once we decide the other fellow – politically — is a murderous Samurai it’s all the excuse most folks need to take the gloves off. After that anything goes. Debate over. The Republicans become murderous warmongers. The Democrats want to negotiate with Hitler. It’s no time to take prisoners. It’s political combat to the death.

Now my point about the Wright videos is Democrats are trying to explain them away by screaming, That’s a racist ad. And Republicans are raring up on their hind legs growling right back, That ad has nothing to do with race. But – just like the captain was smelly and the samurai were murderous – the ad’s about two things: Obama’s extremism and his race. And for my money Obama’s got to speak out on both. But, instead of explaining he’s ignoring. He abandoned the field and left all the explaining to Reverend Wright. Which turned out to be a pretty bad idea.

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