ellis who was a peer of former senator jesse helms in north carolina and in my opinion, ellis almost single-handedly elected three of the best senators of the 20th century, jesse helms, first election 1972, john east in 1980 and faircloth and tom is a lawyer in north carolina and tom ellis and jesse helms literally told ronald reagan and his team in 1976, reagan before he got to north carolina had lost four five primaries, lost the florida primary, new hampshire primary, things were looking really dark. so, ellis and jesse helms said don't come, we don't want you here, we will handle the campaign. end take care of it but if you insist on coming in we have to do four things and jesse helms and tom ellis told reagan four

so, ellis and jesse helms said don't come, we don't want you here, we will handle the campaign.nd take care of it but if you insist on coming in we have to do four things and jesse helms and tom ellis told reagan four things and four things were must attack ford, henry kissinger, the giveaway of the panama canal and detente. reagan said i am ok with all that and he did that and they leave north carolina that afternoon, declined to wisconsin, and great conservative today said that they were writing what reagan's withdrawal speech. you was going to consider withdrawing when he got to wisconsin. however when he got to wisconsin they learned they scored an upset victory in won 52%-47% in north carolina. reagan couldn't have held the campaign together that long so it was a huge. texas primary came along, texas has 100 counties, reagan carried a hundred counties and that is how he became president. >> the other ironic aspect is barry goldwater in '64 and reagan in 76 were lost but also they won. >> it is not an original with me. maybe george will said it. barry goldwater was -- senato

finally there was jesse helms from north carolina who stayed out of the king holiday battle at least, floor of congress until the end when he stole the headlines by squaring off against ted kennedy and saying the only reason we know king was a communist was because ted kennedy's brothers ordered surveillance on him because that is what they believe that he ended up getting a tobacco deal and backing down which people suggested was his motive all along. .. >> bob dole and others pulled reagan to a pretty strong support and all along the republicans and others who oppose the king holiday mostly did so on the this is a very boring reasons that did not meet good copy. if it would be expensive very and economic crisis to give the whole nation's workforce another day off. they calculated that that would be quite costly. ill advised as well. and they said that not enough time had passed for the nation to get enough distance and i had conservatives like strom thurmond landed of voting for the king holiday. and it is established by those who testified with those for the holiday. the very exist

against racial quotas, jesse helms. >> the white hands ad. that was an ad conservative republican senator jesse helms ran in his 1990 senate re-election bid against harvey gantt. and that is very famously one way that political ads can be terrible. that is the classic racist variety of offensive political ad. it's sort of a variant on the same kind of terrible that was this ad against multiple amputee vietnam war veteran senator max cleland. this ad run against him by republican saxby chambliss morphed senator cleland into osama bin laden. yes. sometimes terrible political ads are terrible just because they are offensive. but it's not always offensive. there's a lot of different ways to be a terrible political ad even when you're not being offensive. >> i'm not a witch. i'm nothing you've heard. >> that political ad was terrible not because it was offensive but because actually not all that many people had heard that she might be a witch before she did this amazing ad that started with "i'm not a witch. i'm nothing you've heard." it's not jus

against racial quotas, jesse helms. >> the white hands ad.t was an ad conservative republican senator jesse helms ran in his 1990 senate re-election bid against harvey gantt.

against racial quotas, jesse helms. >> the white hands ad.servative republican senator jesse helms ran in his 1990 senate re-election bid against harvey gantt. and that is very famously one way that political ads can be

he's also referred to senator jesse helms as a, quote, modern hero.012 radio interview, he compared taxes, both to the holocaust and apartheid. >> how did we get along without income tax? >> when did central planning work? it's called the holocaust, the soviet union, apartheid. america's version is better? >> it's not. >> the holocaust, apartheid, that's vile. and if this is what the far right think of the future of the gop should be like, then the whole party's got problems. joining me now are jimy williams and angela ride. thank you both for come on the show tonight. >> thank you, rp 3. >> let me go to you first. what does it say about the gop that a major player like rand paul could be back ing these kinds of views? >> rand paul already said he thinks a part of the civil rights act in 1964 is unconstitutional. i don't know why anybody would be surprised that he would then go to north carolina where the civil rights act of 1964 actually did good work and go endorse a candidate who says things like we don't need an army, air force, marines, we just n

we've had jesse helms and other folks, so that's saying something. >> right. >> but one i don't have the nastiest political ads in our political history, and they were trying to take out this sitting incumbent judge, take her out of the primary, so two republicans could run in november. the interesting story, though, is that robin hudson ended up winning that race and ended up becoming the top vote getter. and i think in some ways, it was a backlash to the growing influence of this big money in these court races. >> you know, the dollar figures you're talking about, i want to make sure people understand this, we're talking about a state supreme court race in the state of north carolina. you're talking about $1.4 million. you're talking about $900,000. these are big amounts of money ff state supreme court races. and of course if you are a business or an interest that might have a case before that court, that's kind of a small amount of money to pay if you've got a $50 million settlement that might come before them. or you might be appealing a regulatory fine that is in the tens of mil

against racial quotas, jesse helms. >> the white hands ad. that was an ad conservative