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Of course, the REAL RINOs are people like Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, and Bob Barr -- the ex-Democrat segregationist sympathizers who have helped turn the GOP into a party that Theodore Roosevelt or Abe Lincoln wouldn't recognize.

I would be very interested in seeing your documentation for making that statement, particularly in regards to Senator Helms.

From encycopedia.com ......

A radio broadcasting executive, Helms gained prominence in the 1960s as a staunchly conservative Raleigh, N.C., radio commentator. Elected (1972) to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from North Carolina, he gained notoriety for his outspoken, often unyielding support of right-wing causes in the Senate. He has championed a strong military establishment and prayer in the public schools while opposing gun control, abortion, and government support for the arts. Helms has chaired the Senate agriculture committee (1981-87) and foreign relations committee (1995-).

I don't see anything there to indicate that Helms was ever a Dem. I'm still looking but will be eager to see your documentation in support of your position.

I would be very interested in seeing your documentation for making that statement [about Helms as an Ex-Dem segregationist], particularly in regards to Senator Helms.

From the National Review ... on Helms's retirement. Last I checked, NR was NOT a liberal rag.

"When segregation began to wane, Helms's Carolina counterpart, Strom Thurmond, went home to make new friends. But since his election in 1972, Helms has been defining himself by his enemies."
Eventually, Helms ended up on WRAL-TV in Raleigh, denouncing the big government social programs, liberals, hippies, and civil-rights activists who helped define North Carolina (and America) in the 1960's. Long before Rush Limbaugh, Helms was on the airwaves dismissing the University of North Carolina (UNC) as the "University of Negroes and Communists."
This is one of the disturbing legacies of Jesse Helms. Though you won't see it mentioned in the media coverage of his retirement, Helms was in fact an avowed and unapologetic segregationist. As a campaign worker, he helped elect segregation candidates before his own run in 1972. Unlike neoconservatives who espouse state's rights on principle, despite any unwanted outcomes on racial issues, Helms backed state's rights specifically because he wanted states to have the right to segregate. If Helms's position on 1960's civil-rights legislation has changed since then, he hasn't mentioned it.

Be careful what you ask for ... you just may get it. :)

Jesse followed his South Carolina neighbor Strom Thurmond into the Republican party. Jesse Helms - CNP Board of Governors 1982, CNP Member 1984-85, 1988, 1996, 1998, 1999; Baptist; Senator R-N.C., democrat until 1970's; chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 33rd degree Mason, Grand Lodge of Masons of North Carolina (Grand Orator, 1965, 1982, and 1991) and is a member of the Shrine; United Nations NGO, Rotary Club; former chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Chairman, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, a member of the Council of 56 of the Religious Roundtable, a member of the Executive Committee of America Cause, in 1975, along with Spruille Braden (CFR) and CNP's Dr. Edward Teller (CFR); a member of the Committee on Conservative Alternatives; Director of the American Conservative Union in 1978-1979, a member of the Organizing Committee of the Citizen's Legal Defense fund for the FBI Ad Hoc; a Trustee of America's Future, a network of the "Establishment", associated with the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress [now Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation]; established Jesse Helms Center; was Executive Vice President, Vice Chairman of the Board and assistant Chief Executive Officer of Capitol Broadcasting Company, Raleigh, North Carolina, from 1960 until his election to the Senate; was Board of Trustees of Meredith College, John F. Kennedy College, Campbell University and Wingate College; January 20, 2000, became the first sitting U.S. Senator in history to address the United Nations Security Council.

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.h.htm