Confessions of a John Edwards for President Volunteer

E-mail to friend of Elizabeth Edwards, 2-10-04

Get somebody, anybody to answer the Edwards campaign’s phones!

"In most ways, the day to day operations are run in an extremely professional manner. I think the campaign has adjusted remarkably well to the reversal of fortune John's surprise second showing in Iowa afforded them. However, it's a hard thing to run a national campaign for the first time, especially after the entire staff's spent a year working as hard as they could only to feel like they were running in place, and hearing pundits count their candidate out before the first votes were cast. So growing pains are still obvious.

One area that’s lacking is local volunteer recruitment and retention. The reality is that right now, there's no one person responsible for making sure there's a full regiment of local volunteers on hand AT ALL TIMES, for phonebanking, letter writing, envelope stuffing, mailings, whatever. The staff members who are responsible for volunteer coordination are amazing, but (a) they're responsible for coordinating volunteers all over the country, not just in Raleigh, and (b) they're not from here themselves, which diminishes their effectiveness when it comes to knowing where to look to find untapped sources of local folks.

The reason this is such an important issue is because volunteer efforts like phonebanking, centralized and coordinated at campaign HQ, can make the difference in a tight race. Assuming enough people are in the seats to do the dialing. For example, John narrowly lost Oklahoma by 1,300 votes on Feb. 3. We placed GOTV calls to South Carolina voters all day long that Tuesday, and switched to Oklahoma around 4 pm EST, once the exit polls showed John winning by a comfortable margin in S.C. but struggling to pull out a victory in OK. We placed over 4,000 calls in four hours. With an hour to go before the polls closed, it was chaos, we were grabbing any staff member in the office who was available and giving them numbers to dial from the phones on their desks.

Hindsight is 20/20, but that Monday, one day earlier, we didn't have enough volunteers on hand to make hardly any calls. And sure, lots of folks helping with the campaign had gone to South Carolina for the weekend, but there are plenty of volunteers in the Triangle who can't travel out of state, but who are more than willing to drive to Raleigh and make phone calls for a few hours. If the callers had been there, more calls would have been made, and at least there might have been a chance to make a difference in the race.

So for this past weekend, we set up four days of phonebanking, from Saturday through today. The result? John placed second in both Tennessee and Virginia, edging Clark, and forcing him out of the race. In the most important contest, Tennessee, he beat Clark by over 12,000 votes.

Obviously, GOTV calls were only one piece in the winning puzzle. But when I walked into the office on Friday, we'd scheduled four days of phonebanking and had virtually nobody on the schedule to come in and make the calls. So I sat down, and got commitments from nearly 30 callers before the afternoon was over. If I hadn't been there, what would have happened? Would those calls have been made? Somebody else would have done it, but when? Everyone else had other, equally pressing projects to deal with. As a further sign that we're not doing a good job of tapping into local folks, one of the people I called and asked to come in actually worked for John in the past, she served as volunteer coordinator during his '98 Senate race! She said she had been wondering if anyone was ever going to call her, and that she had just been rounding up folks to help out with two other charitable volunteer efforts that day. Why haven't we reached out to people like this and gotten them more involved with the campaign?

That's another systemic problem, the constraints that being low on funds have placed on daily operations. People have been forced to double and triple up their workload, because the dollars aren't there to hire more staff. That's probably the biggest problem the campaign faces, aside from Kerry's overwhelming momentum. Final case in point, the campaign really needs to hire a second person full time to handle inbound calls instead of what we're doing now, which is relying on one full time person supplemented by volunteers. There's six lines, when it gets busy they're stacked up with calls, callers dropping like flies, with one full time person on the job. They do the best they can, but how can you run a national campaign with only one person answering the phones? It's penny wise but pound foolish, because every call dropped is a potential financial contribution lost. Just get somebody, anybody, to help pick up those phones!"

(UPDATE 8/15/08: The full background story behind this e-mail is HERE.)

January 20, 2001 Remembered: A Fraudulent Inauguration Kicks Off the Debacle of George W. Bush

Emotions ran high after Bush stole the 2000 election. On Inauguration Day 2001, the largest number of protesters since the Nixon era came to Washington, D.C. and staged a counter-Inaugural, vowing to resist the fraudulent Bush Administration. It was only after 9/11 that the country was shocked into forgetting about the fact that George W. Bush's presidency was illegitimate from the start. The following are some of the slogans heard chanted in the streets on that cold and mournful day:

BUSH LOST, GORE WON. REMEMBER IT.

WHAT IF THEY HELD AN ELECTION...AND NOBODY COUNTED THE VOTES?

WAKE UP AMERICA

BUSH STOLE THE ELECTION

BUSH WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTED

SHAME ON YOU, GEORGE W. BUSH

THE SYSTEM LIED TO US

DEMOCRACY HIJACKED

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

DEMOCRACY DIED WHEN BUSH WON BY 300 STOLEN VOTES

UNITE AND PROTEST THIS MADNESS

DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT



GOVERNMENT BY RICH MEN, NOT LAWS

OVERTHROW KING GEORGE

PATRIOTS UNITE

COUNT THE VOTES

WONDER WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY HAD COUNTED THE VOTES?

HAVE THEY COUNTED THE VOTES YET?

WONDER IF THEY EVER COUNTED THOSE VOTES?

HOW TO WIN AN ELECTION: DON'T LET THEM COUNT THE VOTES

YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS…IF YOUR CANDIDATE'S DADDY ALREADY PACKED THE SUPREME COURT

YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS…IF YOU VOTE THE WAY THE SYSTEM WANTS YOU TO

YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS…IF YOU'RE RICH OR REPUBLICAN

YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS…IF YOU CHOOSE THE PUPPET RIGGED TO WIN

YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS…IF NEXT TIME YOU VOTE TO SAVE AMERICA FROM GEORGE W. BUSH



I LOVE MY COUNTRY

I REFUSE TO SUPPORT AN UNLAWFUL DICTATOR

I REFUSE TO ACCEPT A PUPPET REGIME

I REFUSE TO FORGET ABOUT A STOLEN ELECTION

I REFUSE TO GO ABOUT MY BUSINESS QUIETLY

I REFUSE TO CALL GEORGE W. BUSH MY PRESIDENT

Memo to Al Gore: Don't Concede

E-mail to Al Gore, 11-9-00

(Note from 10-28-08 - After 1996, when my heart was broken a second time by North Carolina’s willingness to re-elect a hatemonger like Jesse Helms over a dynamic, progressive challenger like Harvey Gantt, I was burned out on grassroots organizing. For the next few years, I took a break from politics and sat out the 2000 elections. In the closing weeks of that race, I woke up and realized I’d made a big mistake. I will forever regret not having been involved in trying to turn Florida blue, the state that decided the entire election, where one of my political mentors was on contract that fall registering black voters. In fact, I think I was personally, uniquely positioned to have made a difference in Florida, if only I had put two and two together. But that’s another story.

Once the election was over, I wasn’t under any illusion that Al Gore would take advice in an e-mail from some random knucklehead, but I was pissed off enough about how things went down to send it to him anyway. Which was probably evident by my liberal use of exclamation points. As things turned out, Al fought the good fight, but he fell short by the five Supreme Court votes that ultimately shut down the Florida recount and installed George W. Bush as the most illegitimate U.S. President of the modern era.)



>>Dear Al,

When they finish the recount this afternoon, don’t concede! Even if Bush is still ahead by 1,000 votes or whatever.

You won! You won the popular vote, and you won Florida, fair and square. With a margin separating you from victory of only 1,000 or so votes, there is hard, incontrovertible evidence that voters in at least one county, Palm Beach County, cast more than 20,000 ballots for you that (a) weren’t counted or (b) were mistakenly counted for Buchanan. So even assuming there’s a huge flood of overseas ballots still to arrive and George Bush might pick up another 5,000 (unlikely since in '96 there were only 2,300 and just 54% of them were for Dole), you would still have won Florida if the people’s will was respected.

The evidence is plain enough for the majority of voters nationwide to support whatever legal challenges have to be mounted in order to make sure the people’s will in Palm Beach County (and Osceola County and anywhere else where the same kinds of misleading ballots were used) is respected.

Whoever sees the ballots used will come to the same conclusion! I saw one on the internet yesterday, from the Sun-Sentinel, but today copies were re-printed in other newspapers around the country. Thank God Florida’s initial results are getting nationwide scrutiny, because it’s outrageous!

The Gore-Lieberman ticket was listed second, but voters had to punch the third hole! If voters punched the second hole, they cast their votes for Pat Buchanan! It’s that simple! Anybody can understand it!



As soon as I heard that 19,000 votes in Palm Beach County alone had been invalidated, because they had been punched more than one time, I knew something rotten was about to go down. Now we’re not just talking about 3,400 disputed votes, the majority mistakenly cast for Buchanan (which he himself admitted this morning on the Today show were probably not cast for him, but were probably Gore-Lieberman votes), we’re talking about more than 20,000.

20,000 Americans denied their rightful votes! Outrage! Shame! The democratic process must be respected. If misleading ballots were used in a county, re-vote that county. A simple solution that a majority of voters nationwide would support.

The reason why you’re on firm political ground for not conceding until the legal challenges are settled is that you’re not crying vote fraud, although there’s obviously arguments to be made that minority voters were intimidated in various counties and apparently, there was an official tainted by past voter fraud convictions (GOP mayoral candidate Xavier Suarez) involved with the GOP’s absentee ballot efforts.

This is not 1960, these are no vague, hard-to-prove allegations of voter fraud that you’re making, like Nixon would have been forced to do, this is a very specific case of ballots in one or two counties out of 67 being poorly designed, subsequently misleading voters, and casting doubts about the validity of the entire process. In order to retain people’s confidence in the system, a re-vote is necessary.

Here’s the important part: it was an honest mistake! The fact that the elections chair who approved the ballot in Palm Beach County is a Democrat is a powerful argument IN YOUR FAVOR!

It proves you’re not accusing Bush of voter fraud by allowing citizens of Florida to push for a re-vote in Palm Beach County, you just realize that an honest mistake has been made that INADVERTANTLY disfranchised over 20,000 Florida voters!

Understand that the people will support you! It’s George W. Bush who looks like he’s trying to steal the election. The onus is on him to begin with, not you, because his brother runs the damn state! He’s the one who people already suspect is trying to thwart the will of the Republic. And when you win Florida, assuming Bush takes Oregon, if he then tries challenging results in Iowa and Wisconsin, he’ll really look like he’s trying to steal this election.

You ran a great race and totally deserved to win. You made your dad and mom and Nancy very proud. How ironic that the voters of Tennessee refused to put you over the top. And you did it by running as a real Democrat, sure, one with New Democrat credentials, but embracing rather than repudiating the party’s progressive heritage. Listening to your stump speeches in the closing days, it was clear to me and many others that Al Gore is the current standard bearer of the progressive movement in this country.

And you ran this great race and worked your heart out against all odds, while under attack from Nader on the left, facing a potent, flush with cash challenge from George W. Bush, and almost doomed from the start thanks to Bill Clinton and his conduct re Monica Lewinsky! Al, you are the man.

I can only hope you’ve already reached the same conclusions about this recount yourself, but I wanted to make sure you heard them from a fan with a perspective far removed from the campaign bunker.

Good luck, Al, and thanks again for fighting for America!

Erik Ose
Chapel Hill, NC

Waking Up On November 8th To Find Another Bush in the White House

E-mail to family & friends, 10-28-00

(If you know anybody who's seriously considering not voting for Al Gore over George W. Bush, e-mail this to them. Also forward it to any of your friends who are also concerned about waking up on November 8th to find another Bush in the White House, and tell them to pass it along to their friends, and so on. Don't let anyone tell you this isn't an important presidential election!)

>>Are you thinking about voting for George W. Bush over Al Gore? Well, here's good reasons to be skeptical about the charge, repeated endlessly by the Bush campaign, that you can't trust anything Al Gore says. Check out this recent column by Tom Teepen of the Cox News Service, showing how Al Gore's gotten a bum rap for being a serial exaggerator:

Gore the Untruthful - Is That So?
By Tom Teepen

Atlanta, October 19 - There's a concerted effort under way to discredit Al Gore with lurid claims that he's a serial liar, compulsive and even "pathological," according to that eminent clinical psychiatrist Rush Limbaugh.
This thing has been building for months, the ground prepared for a leap into the mainstream by busy Internet haw-hawing at Gore's supposed whoppers and by ridicule and retailed indignation on the political right's informal network of talk radio spielers.
The campaign itself is a lie.
Lord knows, Gore is a political exaggerator. In that, he is different only from the politicians who are not. Try to find one. Gore puts the best light on his accomplishments. He personalizes issues where the connection is strained. He can make a mountain out of a molehill on his own behalf. In a word, spin.
But ditto George W. Bush, who has a habit - disturbing, if you like - of claiming credit for successes in Texas he didn't initiate and for popular policies and legislation he had outright opposed.
The slander of Gore is rooted in a widely circulated list of supposed exaggerations so extreme they became routine fodder for comedians and armchair shrinks.
Gore claimed he invented the Internet; said he was the model for the young hero in the novel "Love Story"; pretended he discovered the toxic Love Canal; and said he labored on a farm, when everybody knows he's just a pampered prep school twit.
In point of fact, he never said he invented the Internet. He said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." And he did just that. He was a crucial player - THE crucial player, many in the field say - in securing enabling legislation and funding for development of the Internet, one of the first in Washington to see the potential.
He never said he discovered Love Canal. Encouraging school kids to be interested in the environment, he recalled how he had learned about a toxic waste problem in his home state and then researched other, similar sites, including Love Canal, and held Congressional hearings on the issues. All true.
"Love Story" author Erich Segal has confirmed that the novel's Oliver Barrett was a mix of Gore and Gore's college roommate, the actor Tommy Lee Jones.
The Gore family had a working farm in Tennessee and it is common knowledge thereabouts that young Al worked the farm chores - and worked them hard - during summers, holidays and weekends.
All of this has been on the record for months but continues to be ignored by commentators who find the truth less useful than the tale of Gore the serial fibber.
And with Gore the Liar by then a set character, it was no trick to claim he lied when he said in the first debate that a Florida girl had to stand in school because of overcrowded classes. But the girl's father confirms the story and so does coverage, easily accessible, in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Now that he's been typecast, expect every Gore fumble to be cited in confirmation. The smear - and it's just that, built up in increments - has worked.

Tom Teepen is a columnist for Cox Newspapers.

A longer, more detailed article by Princton historian Sean Wilentz published last month in the American Prospect making the same argument can be found HERE. This article also presents detailed evidence that most of the supposed fundraising and other ethical "scandals" the Bush campaign has tried to pin on Al (including his attendance at the infamous Buddhist temple "fundraiser") are without merit.

Finally, here's two eye-opening columns by Molly Ivins, nationally syndicated columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram who has observed George W. Bush up close and personal during his six years in office:

Bush Files An Odd Claim by Molly Ivins, October 19

The Unexamined Candidate by Molly Ivins, October 24

As Molly says, "Damned if I know why he's running. He is a nice fellow. I've always liked him. I like lots of people who I don't think should be President."

Read These Books: A How-To Guide For Mind Freedom

There's a lot of good books out there. And a lot to learn about this f-ed up world of ours and the shifty, shady forces who control it and have a plan to control us, if we don't wise up to their game. Unfortunately for them, they've failed to realize that smart folks ain't going out like that. So let's get it on, because mind freedom is only a library card away.

Young and Fucked Over

Growing Up Absurd, Paul Goodman (1960)

The Student As Nigger, Jerry Farber (1967)

If you can find this book, you're in luck. 'Cuz it's the bomb and will wake you up. Check out this opening paragraph:

"School is where you let the dying society put its trip on you. Our schools may seem useful: to make children into doctors, sociologists, engineers - to discover things. But they're poisonous as well. They exploit and enslave students; they petrify society, they make democracy unlikely. And it's not what you're taught that does the harm but how you're taught. Our schools teach you by pushing you around, by stealing your will and your sense of power, by making timid square apathetic slaves out of you - authority addicts."

And it gets better from there. After this amazing manifesto was first published, it was reprinted more than 500 times around the country in several magazines, underground newspapers, and student newspapers on hundreds of campuses during 1967-68. It caused controversy and fucked shit up wherever it appeared. Reprint some sections of it yourself with graphics sprinkled throughout, distribute it at your high school or college, and watch the shit hit the fan.

Our Time Is Now: Notes From The High School Underground, John Birmingham (editor) (1970)

Generation At The Crossroads, Paul Rogat Loeb (1994)

Welcome To The Jungle: The Why Behind Generation X, Geoffrey T. Holtz (1995)

Power Structure/Ruling Class

Friendly Fascism, Bertram Gross (1980)

The power that corporations and the wealthy have over us in today's America may be steering dangerously close to fascism, but it's a smarter, more devious kind than has popped up in the past, because there's no central dictator, no storm troopers, and still the pretense of free elections and democracy. It's fascism with a velvet glove covering the iron fist underneath, it's a kinder, gentler, friendly fascism. This book saw it all coming and will teach you how to better fight it.

Democracy For The Few, Michael Parenti (1983)

Our number two pick. This book lays it on the line, it's easy to follow, and it's full of dangerous knowledge the power structure doesn't want you to read. We live in a time when our lives are increasingly controlled by the plans and decisions of multi-national corporations. Our privacy and individual rights are steadily being taken away from us through the use of ever more high-tech, sophisticated monitoring and surveillance techniques. Our government is bought and paid for by these same large corporations whose plan seems to be total global control and unending profits for them at the entire world's expense. If you think we're still living in a democracy, take the challenge and read this book. You're in for a rude awakening...

The Democratic Facade, Daniel Hellinger (1994)

The Mass Media & Its Lies

Don't Blame The People, Robert Cirino (1971)

Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman (1985)

Why the fuck do we watch so much television? Growing up in America means spending more time in front of the TV than in school. The average American watches an unbelievable six hours per day. Eight hours working, eight hours sleeping, six hours watching TV - that only leaves two hours to eat your meals, get laid, and do the laundry! No wonder nobody's got time to figure out how they're bring fucked over by the rich and the super-rich, or raise a hand to do anything about it. In this book Neil Postman reveals the forces that feed America's addiction to entertainment and proves they're one of the main reasons our future on this planet is fast going up in smoke.

Unreliable Sources: A Guide To Detecting Bias in News Media, Martin Lee & Norman Soloman (1990)

Inventing Reality: The Politics Of News Media, Michael Parenti (1993)

Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky (1994)

Exploitation & Other Joys Of Work

The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past, Barbara Garson (1988)

Falling From Grace: The Experience Of Downward Mobility In The American Middle Class, Katherine S. Newman (1988)

The Humanized Workplace, Jerome Braun (1995)

Divide & Conquer Through Racism, Sexism, Homophobia

Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology Of Writings From The Women's Liberation Movement, Robin Morgan (editor) (1970)

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Susan Faludi (1991)

Backlash rocks. Must reading for everybody, female and male. Our number four pick. It breaks down the myths and bullshit that would have you believe women's fight for equality in this country is already won. Is it "equality" when nearly 75% of full-time working women make less than $20,000 a year, nearly twice the percentage of males making that little? Why are 2/3 of all poor adults women, and why are women so much more likely than men to live in poor housing and have no health insurance, and twice as likely to draw no pension? Why does the average female college graduate today earn less than a male high school graduate, an f-ed up imbalance that hasn't changed since the 1950's?

Why are women less than 8 percent of all federal and state judges, less than 6 percent of all law partners, and less than one half of one percent of top corporate managers? The number of women in the U.S. Senate is at an all-time high - a measly 6 out of 100. Why do only ten states have laws mandating arrest for domestic violence committed by husbands against their wives? Why do women constantly have to defend their right to control their own reproductive organs, and why are new laws restricting abortion (or even information about abortion) for young and poor women being passed?

All this shit should make you plenty pissed off, and reading this book will clue you in on the reasons it's all going down.

Two Nations, Andrew Hacker (1992)

Our number three pick. This book spells out in black and white the state of U.S. race relations in the 90s. In case anybody bought the Cosby Show version of today's America as a place where racism and white supremacy have almost disappeared, check this knowledge out and get a fuller picture. But it goes a lot deeper. Why do the powers-that-be tolerate, allow, even encourage the continued existence of race-based hatreds? Because they divide us, separating us from one another along imaginary lines, preventing the majority of the people from realizing our real adversaries are the corporations and the super-rich who want us all under their control.

What can be done about it? Coming to grips with the myths of racism, understanding their origins and why they're still around, and figuring out how to tear these myths down. You don't have to run out and organize a protest march first thing. Books like this one arm you with the information power you need to figure out what you can do in your own life to help heal America's race wounds. If enough of us connect with the people we come into contact with on an equal basis, as fellow freedom-loving individuals, even in small steps we'll be moving down the road toward the day when people can truly live together and love one another.

Don't Forget To Exploit The Third World

How The Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons For World Hunger, Susan George (1976)

The Washington Connection And Third World Fascism, Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman (1979)

Rebels From The Past

The Autobiography Of Malcolm X (1964)

Who was Malcolm X? He was a black American who aroused more fear and hatred among white racists in the sixties than anyone else - because he was committed to liberating black Americans from racism and oppression by any means necessary, and it was obvious to all that he would never give up, never sell out, never stop fighting. This is his story.

Living My Life, Vols 1 & 2, Emma Goldman (1970)

A People's History Of The United States, Howard Zinn (1980)

You need to read this book. There's a lot of good ones listed here, but this one is it. The straight dope. Our number one pick. The one that tells you about the real history of America, not the whitewashed bullshit one they tried to brainfeed you in grade school. The history of ordinary Americans who have fought brave and hard against corporate exploitation, racism, police brutality, and other fucked up anti-democratic bullshit the powers-that-be have been trying to pull on all of us since this country came into being. Go find it.

Uncovering The Sixties, Abe Peck (1985)

Did you know that during the sixties there were at least five hundred revolutionary, underground papers distributed for free all over the country? And we're not talking about publications full of nothing more than current movie reviews, club listings, overpriced restaurants that want your food dollars, and personal ads from lonely thirty-somethings. These papers printed news that the mainstream media wouldn't, preaching revolution against the war machine, corporate exploitation, racism, sexism, and the brainwashing of youth. And definitely in favor of free love, drug adventures, and loud music. They were down for the struggle, and they had an impact! On the surface, this book is a history of that press. But it's so much more than that - it's the story of what the underground press covered - the whole freaky wild craziness that actually went down in the sixties. So deep a story it will blow your mind and make you wonder, "did this shit really happen only thirty years ago?" Required reading - our number five pick.

Democracy Is In The Streets, James Miller (1987)

The Best Of Abbie Hoffman (1989)

Abbie Hoffman is my hero. And he should be your hero, too. Included in this volume are selections from his very out-of-print classics Revolution For The Hell Of It, Woodstock Nation, and Steal This Book. They went out of print because they were too controversial for any publisher to touch for many years. Revolutionary, hustler, general badass - Abbie was the man. And he scared people. Threw dollar bills down on traders on the floor of New York Stock Exchange and had them scrambling around like the greedy bastards they really were, for the world to see. Helped organize a 500,000 person strong March On The Pentagon designed to exorcise it of evil, war-like spirits, complete with announced plans to levitate the building at the march's conclusion. Had authorities terrified that thousands of hippies were coming to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and poison the water supply with LSD. These fears ultimately provoked a police riot that proved once and for all how the power structure really reacts to those who question its authority. Steal this book, then read it.

Fighting Back Today

Reveille For Radicals; Rules For Radicals, Saul Alinsky (1946 & 1971)

Saul Alinsky was a radical organizer of people's movements against poverty and oppression. He wrote these two books to teach other people how they could do the exact same thing. You'll learn tactics, philosophy, invaluable insights into human nature and why people act they way they do, and important information about how to survive, succeed and win as a radical in America.

The New Our Bodies, Ourselves, The Boston Women's Health Book Collective (1992)

Greetings From This Modern World; Tune In Tomorrow, Tom Tomorrow (1992 & 1994)

America: What Went Wrong?, Donald Barlett & James Steele (1992)

Independent Groups Fight Specific Candidates

The Charlotte Observer, 10/7/96

By JIM MORRILL, Staff Writer

Until this year, Patsy Clarke had been a lifelong Republican and faithful supporter of Republican Sen. Jesse Helms. When her husband, Harry, died in 1987, Helms called in sympathy and even paid tribute to his late friend in the Congressional Record.

So when Clarke's 31-year-old son Mark died of AIDS in 1994, she wrote to Helms, an outspoken critic of homosexuals. She asked him to support AIDS research and not pass judgment on other people. Helms replied.

"I know that Mark's death was devastating to you," he wrote. "I wish he had not played Russian roulette with his sexual activity. I have sympathy for him - and for you. But there is no escaping the reality of what happened."

What the 67-year-old Clarke saw as coldness in Helms' reply prompted her to co-found the Raleigh-based "Mothers Against Jesse in Congress."

MAJIC is one of several groups - small and large - trying to influence North Carolina's U.S. Senate race and other contests with money or manpower. Many are anti-Helms. Others are expected to weigh in against Democrats, including Helms' rival Harvey Gantt.

They range from national organizations such as organized labor's AFL-CIO to groups such as VANISH (Voters Against N.C. Incumbent Sen. Helms), started by a handful of Chapel Hill rock bands that raised $16,000 at a benefit concert in July.

Such groups are no strangers in politics. Most are required to file spending reports with the Federal Election Commission and generally are barred from cooperating with candidate campaigns.

Like their motives, their levels of involvement vary.

An AFL-CIO spokesman recently said the group was spending "less than $100,000" a week running ads in the 2nd Congressional District against Republican Rep. David Funderburk. Spokesman Deborah Dion said the ad campaign is "not political. It's educational." She said it's unclear what, if anything, the group will do in the Senate race.

While labor helps Democrats, other groups typically aid Republicans.

The FEC currently is suing the Christian Coalition, arguing among other things that it illegally contributed to Helms' 1990 campaign by distributing 750,000 "voter guides" and making 29,800 phone calls as part of a get-out-the-vote telephone bank.

One of the largest independent efforts in North Carolina is being run by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group. For it, Helms is the year's No. 1 target.

It plans to spend $225,000 in the state to defeat Helms, according to Michael Armentrout, head of the N.C. effort. He says the group, which raises much of its money in North Carolina, plans mailings and phone calls, particularly to swing voters. The group does not expressly identify itself as a gay-rights group in mailings, but doesn't hide it if asked, Armentrout said.

"It's not focused at all on gay issues," Armentrout says. "It's focused on what the (voter) in North Carolina tells us are important to them. We know the issues are education, crime, the environment and those sorts of things."

Helms spokesman Eddie Woodhouse says the campaign takes such groups "very seriously."

"These are radical, liberal groups, most from out-of-state, who are trying to influence the voters of North Carolina," Woodhouse says. "They can raise money. They can mobilize troops."

Some groups organized to fight Helms - including the Charlotte-based "Not Helms PAC" - already have dissolved. Those still active include:

* N.C. Mobilization '96. The gay-oriented group based in the Raleigh area has raised less than $20,000 so far, says organizer Mandy Carter, 47. But she says she feels more optimistic than she did in 1990, in part because gays and lesbians are more visible and active.

* Musicians Organized for Voter Education. This is a Chapel Hill-based coalition of musicians and performers critical of Helms' opposition to public arts funding. Spokesman Erik Ose, 25, says the group has focused on registering young people at festivals and concerts.

* Clean Up Congress. Working on college campuses and in communities, the group has raised more than $100,000 since May, says spokesman Alex Kaplan, 25. He says volunteers are distributing 100,000 copies of Helms' environmental voting record, which he called "the worst."

Patsy Clarke of MAJIC says she tries to be realistic about what groups such as hers can do.

"There are times when I think we're going to have a big impact because our message is one of emotion," she says. "Realistically we feel like David and Goliath. We only hope that the result could be the same as David's."