Fear and computers help the Congressional Club grow rich
It could be the headquarters of any good ol' Southern politician almost anywhere, any time. The cluttered rooms are on the second floor of a Raleigh office building. The folks in charge are soft-spoken and unassuming, shying away from taking credit for any special genius or any real authority. Yet Jesse Helms' Congressional Club is the very model of modern, high-technology politics, a shrewd mating of computers and direct mail. Helms and his minions have built what amounts to their own nationwide political machine. It has combined newfangled fund raising with old-fashioned mud slinging to become one of the most powerful forces in American politics.
Already this year the Congressional Club has raised almost $3 million; that is more than the Democratic National Committee. Last year the club was the nation's second largest independent political-action committee, raising $7.8 million, behind only the National Conservative Political Action Committee (N.C.P.A.C.), for which Helms also helps raise money. Such resources enabled the club to pump $4.5 million into Ronald Reagan's presidential effort. The club was able as well to send money to 30 conservative candidates for the House and Senate across the nation.
Begun simply as a campaign committee for Helms' first Senate race in 1972, the club went big time when it enlisted right-wing Direct-Mail Maestro Richard Viguerie to pay off the Helms campaign debt. With Viguerie's assistance, the club has built a mailing list of some 300,000 names, all proven givers to reactionary causes. Viguerie, hi fact, still controls two-thirds of the list and receives rental payments from the club every tune those names are used for causes other than Jesse Helms' reelection.
Like other right-wing direct-mail operations, the Helms machine has perfected the techniques of turning fear into funds and piety into profit. Nearly every one of the 10 million to 20 million letters mailed from the club each year warns of the growing dangers of Communism and Government social spending. Cautioned Helms in a letter last summer: "In the face of the growing Soviet war machine, the ultra-liberals have virtually disarmed America."
In a mailing last spring to drum up money and support for Reagan's budget cuts, Helms wrote that "liberal pressure groups are at work, organizing to flood Congress with mail demanding that liberal food stamp and welfare giveaways not be cut. Sadly, this pressure, if not offset, could be successful." The effort to stop the ultraliberals, the mailings usually suggest, arises because "the Lord may very well be giving us one last chance to save America." The letters typically end: "God bless you always. Sincerely, Jesse."