Raleigh-based Republican consultant Carter Wrenn has had a front-row seat to decades of political history. He worked for the campaigns of U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and Ronald Reagan starting in the 1970s.
He鈥檚 now written a book on his experience that offers an inside look at some key moments and controversial figures in politics. He spoke with 瓜神app's Colin Campbell about the book, on this week鈥檚 episode of the 瓜神app Politics Podcast.
Wrenn also reflected on some aspects of his political work that he鈥檚 come to regret. One is an infamous 1990 ad about hiring quotas that was widely seen as racist.
This conversation has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
What made you decide to write a book about what went on behind the scenes and the campaigns you've worked on over the years?
"People don't really have a clear picture of politics, and the stories give them one. So I wanted to tell stories from politics over the last 50 years, since Reagan, and use the stories to show the changes and what was different, and try to make it come alive to people."
How did Helms鈥� Congressional Club organization get started, and what influence did it have on GOP politics, both in North Carolina and nationally?
"It had a lot of influence, both in-state and nationally. How it got started: It wasn't anything brilliant that we set out to do. Helms had a debt from his 1972 campaign. You can't do it this way now, but back then, one man guaranteed $200,000 in debt, and he told (Helms advisor) Tom Ellis, I鈥檒l guaranteed the debt 鈥� you got the money you need to spend for Jesse to get elected. If he wins, you got to pay me back, and if you don't win, I'll take care of it. And so the Congressional Club was set up after Jesse won to pay that debt."
You also wrote in the book about one of the most notorious commercials in North Carolina political history, the 1990 鈥榃hite Hands鈥� ad that used the issue of racial quotas and hiring against Helms鈥� opponent, Harvey Gant, a Democrat and Charlotte mayor who's Black. What made you ultimately regret having a role in that particular ad campaign?
"Race has always been an issue in southern politics, and to do what they call 鈥榩lay the race card,鈥� there were boundaries. You couldn't be overtly racist, but if you talked about busing, that touched the racial card without being a racial issue, and we did that in elections regularly.
"We did an ad that attacked Gant for hiring quotas, and I thought that was OK. But maybe 10 years later, I became friends with a Black man in Raleigh. He served in the Air Force for 20 some years, had been a sergeant.
"(After he learned about the ad), he brought three Tuskegee Airmen. They sat down in my library, and he pointed to those three men, and he said, 鈥楾hey served in the Army and Air Force when they couldn't vote.鈥� He said, 鈥楾hat's what I call love of my country.鈥� And sitting there, I saw that ad through those three Black men's eyes, and that was when I decided I wouldn't do that again."
If Jesse Helms was still alive and active in politics, do you think he'd fit in with the modern Republican Party today?
"Parts of him would. A lot of these politicians, they're into the glory of it, the grandstanding of it, and they like being called Senator or Congressman. He would fit in with that.
"He played populist games, that would have fit. On the other hand, he had a piece of ideologue in him, and politics today is not really about conservative and liberal anymore, so he wouldn't have fit in that world.
"He was a showman. Jesse started out on WRAL-TV as a commentator. That's not reality TV like how Trump started out, but it's not all that far apart."
Hear the full conversation with Wrenn on the 瓜神app Politics Podcast.
