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Article: Action replay: the North Carolina Senate race. (rematch between Senator Jesse Helms and Democratic challenger Harvey Gantt)(American Survey)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 1, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CHAPEL HILL
IN 1990, Jesse Helms, a hard-edged conservative with a history of opposition to civil-rights measures, won a fourth term as Republican senator for North Carolina. He defeated, by 53-47%, Harvey Gantt, a black Democrat and former mayor of Charlotte, in what was then the most expensive Senate race in history. Soon afterwards Mac McCorkle, a southern political thinker who served as deputy manager of the Gantt campaign, published a perceptive analysis of the bitter contest in Reconstruction, a journal.
Mr McCorkle wrote that the "cosmopolitan" Mr Gantt, with his "liberal version of middle-class progressivism" had "nearly upset the Helms team". But, in ...