THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020426
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GOLDSBORO LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
This year's 3rd District Congressional fight is in the best traditions of knock-down-drag-out Tar Heel politics.
Republican Sen. Jesse Helms plans to get there fustest with the mostest this week when he rides into enemy territory to help Walter B. Jones Jr.
Jones, who enlisted only last year in the GOP, is running against incumbent U.S. Rep. H. Martin Lancaster, D-Goldsboro. For weeks, Lancaster has been counting on a final pre-election push from N.C. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. at a huge Democratic rally in Elizabeth City on Thursday.
Instead, Lancaster and Hunt will find themselves outflanked by Helms in Goldsboro, Lancaster's hometown. The GOP conservative will arrive in Goldsboro at 11:30 a.m. Thursday to join Jones for a Republican rally at Wayne County Community College - more than four hours before the Democrats gather in Elizabeth City.
This rally is the second headline-grabbing campaign effort in two months that Helms has made for Jones.
``He's a fine, decent, bright young American, a Congressman that you'll be proud of. . . .'' Helms said of Jones in an announcement about Thursday's visit.
Helms again seems to be using campaign tactics that were part of his 1984 Senate battle. Then, Helms defeated Hunt and sent the N.C. governor into an eight-year political exile that ended in 1992.
In 1984, Helms often bird-dogged Hunt around the state, making earlier entrances or staging counter-rallies designed to throw Democrats off balance.
Then and now, Helms has claimed to have nothing to do with the timing of the events.
Jones is the son of the late Rep. Walter B. Jones Sr., a Democrat who represented the old 1st Congressional District for 26 years. For a decade, the younger Jones was a Democratic member of the N.C. House, but switched to the GOP when the Democratic party failed to nominate him to fill out his deceased father's unexpired term in Washington.
The 1992 congressional redistricting placed many of his father's old 1st District constituents in Lancaster's new 3rd District, and Jones decided to run as a Republican in this year's 3rd District race.
Karen Rotterman, Jones' top strategist in Raleigh, on Tuesday denounced Lancaster's TV spots that allege that Jones missed votes in the N.C. General Assembly.
``During Walter's 10 years in the Legislature, there were over a million votes in the N.C. House,'' said Rotterman.
``The Lancaster campaign asks you to call an 800-number that tells you Walter missed 185 votes, and the implication is that they were all in recent sessions.''
Democrats are mustering their own troops for Hunt's Thursday visit to Elizabeth City.
Lancaster and 1st District Rep. Eva M. Clayton, D-Warrenton, will be among dozens of Democratic candidates who will crowd into the 4-H Livestock Arena on U.S. 17 South at 5 p.m. to receive Hunt's blessing at the party rally.
Frankie Meads, chairman of the Pasquotank County Republican Party, said Tuesday he knew of no Republican plans to stage an Elizabeth City counter-rally tomorrow.
``As far as we're concerned, it's just some more bull in a livestock arena,'' said Meads. by CNB