Primaries: Snubbing Jesse’s Club

The National Congressional Club, political lair of North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, is a money machine that raised $5.7 million to back right-wing candidates in the 1984 election, one of the largest war chests collected by any political-action committee in the nation, conservative or liberal. Last week it suffered a resounding defeat on its home ground.

By a 2-to-1 margin, Tarheel State Republicans chose Congressman James Broyhill, a mainstream conservative, over the N.C.C.’s man, former Ambassador to Rumania David Funderbunk, to run for the Senate seat vacated by another Helms protege, retiring Senator John East. Broyhill promptly announced that he would wage his campaign without the help of Helms’ organization, thank you very much. The continuing bitterness in G.O.P. ranks brought smiles to Democrat Terry Sanford, 68, a onetime North Carolina Governor, who, in a crowded field of ten candidates, won his party’s Senate nomination with 60% of the vote.