Jesse Helms Republican

I struggle to describe the radical North Carolina branch of the Republican Party. As I tell my Republican friends, this is not the Republican Party I grew up with in Minnesota.

The message that drew my mother to the "Party of Lincoln" 50 years ago: fiscal efficiency, individual responsibility, equality of opportunity, and protecting rights and civil liberties, is now completely lost. The NC GOP of 2008 has abdicated those mainstream American values in favor of anti-government rhetoric, rigid and dangerous fiscal policy, social intolerance, and divisiveness.

My opponent, the NC GOP minority leader in the NC House, embraces those warped priorities and actively works to promote them in our legislature. I have often used the terms "Far-Right", "Ultra-Conservative", and privately a few less-charitable phrases to describe my opponent's extreme political ideology.

The recent death of Senator Jesse Helms and the resulting discussion about his politics provided a bright spotlight on the sorry pedigree of today's NC Republican Party. But even I was shocked when my opponent stood alone, like "Senator No!" of a bygone era, as the single vote against a bill to increase penalties for cross-burning, wearing a hood, and displaying nooses for racial intimidation.

Now I know: Skip Stam is a "Jesse Helms Republican".