One thing is like fate in political campaigns: The unexpected always happens. It happened to us three days after we caught Hunt in the polls.

Bob Windsor was an aardvark. He must have been a farmer – once – because he wore bibbed overalls like a farmer but he’d decided his real calling was newspaperman so he published a little free handout tabloid. He also thought – or at least said he did – that Jesse hung the moon and Jim Hunt was a villain on the order of Rasputin.

Around the Fourth of July Windsor either had an attack of sunstroke or a moment of pure insanity because he ran a story with the headline, Jim Hunt: Sissy, Prissy and Gay? He said not only was Hunt gay but had a girlfriend on the side to boot. It was a smear. Not a word of it was true. But it blew up on Jesse – not Windsor. Because we’d been running newspaper ads in Windsor’s little tabloid – which had just become the National Enquirer of North Carolina.

The minute Mr. Ellis saw Windsor’s story he told the press it was a smear and we cancelled our ads in Windsor’s paper – but before you could blink Hunt held a press conference with a dozen outraged Baptist ministers and their message was clear – who else but Jesse Helms would be behind that smear?

For once Jesse and Tom Ellis and I were innocent as the driven snow but what chance did we have against a dozen Baptist ministers – every newspaper in the state ripped into Jesse and he plummeted back to where he’d been in the polls in January – six months and five million dollars ago.

Then the unexpected struck again.

To Hunt’s folks Windsor’s story must have been the last straw – they got fighting mad and did something they’d never done – they heaved a mud ball TV ad straight at Jesse.

Hunt’s ad started with pictures of dead bodies of men, women and children killed by death squads in El Salvador – then they put up a picture of Roberto D’Aubuisson (the anti-communist politician in El Salvador a lot of people said led the death squads) and a picture of Jesse and said, This is Roberto D’Aubuisson. And this is Jesse Helms. His best friend in Washington. Maybe his only friend in Washington.

Now in 1983 folks hadn’t believed us saying Jim Hunt was a liberal and a year later they didn’t believe – even if D’Aubuisson and Jesse were both right-wing anti-communists – Jesse supported death squads – so Hunt’s ad backfired.

J.T. Knott, a conservative Democrat, did an ad for Jesse saying Hunt had crossed the line of decency and fair play and that Hunt’s ad really proved he’d say anything to get elected.

When the smoke cleared by the end of July we were back to even in the polls.

Then we had the first debate and the floor fell out from under us again.

To be continued… Caspar Milquetoast Whips King Kong

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