By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 29, 1998; Page A23

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. – The plates were piled high with fried chicken and "pig pickins," but the oratory was strictly red meat: Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and big-name friends pulling out all the stops to rally wavering "Jessecrats" behind the faltering reelection campaign of Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R).

The reason for this 11th-hour mobilization was Democrat John Edwards, the wealthy, youthful-appearing trial lawyer from Raleigh who is campaigning as a political outsider and energetic "advocate for the people" against powerful interests that he suggests are backing Faircloth.

Polls indicate the race is too close to call, one of the tightest in the country, and the Faircloth camp is running scared.

"Lauch's defeat could very well dash . . . any hope whatsoever of controlling the man who's committed high crimes and misdemeanors of making America the laughingstock of the world," Helms roared as the small but enthusiastic crowd whooped with delight.

"Take the liberal out," shouted Faircloth, who repeatedly described Edwards as a North Carolina "surrogate" for President Clinton.

As they were speaking, Faircloth was also launching television ads that were even more explicit, portraying Edwards as a Clinton clone in an effort to exploit Clinton's lack of popularity in this conservative, tobacco-growing region, which provides Helm's margin of victory but cannot be taken for granted by Faircloth.

Three of four television ads aired by Faircloth for the campaign's final stretch carried side-by-side pictures of Clinton and Edwards – one with Pinocchio-style noses – linking them as "two tobacco-taxing liberal lawyers who are well known for stretching the truth."

Without Faircloth, "Clinton's big-spending government would be even bigger," one of the ads claims. "That's why Clinton raised $400,000 for liberal John Edwards [at a July fund-raiser], trying to defeat our conservative Sen. Faircloth."

The North Carolina race has been one to watch from the start.

It pits the articulate, telegenic Edwards, a 45-year-old political newcomer with no public record to pick apart, against the genial but sometimes tongue-tied Faircloth, 70, who has been in politics since before Edwards was born. It has become a struggle that evokes a conflict of generations and styles as well as ideologies, issues and parties.

Edwards has made much of Faircloth's unwillingness to debate him and loves to tell the story about how Faircloth even ducked getting photographed with him when they were being interviewed separately. Negative ads, Edwards says in his best choirboy fashion, are no substitute for face-to-face combat on issues.

Edwards is not running as a traditional Democrat, conservative Democrat or even Clinton-style "New Democrat," said Ferrell Guillory, who teaches Southern politics at the University of North Carolina. Rather, he said, Edwards is running as a "different kind of Democrat" who relies on broad themes and his biography, from small-town roots to his winning record in suing corporations on behalf of "regular people," to demonstrate what kind of senator he would be.

This, coupled with the fact that Faircloth is not the North Carolina icon that Helms is, has helped make Faircloth a rarity in this election: a Republican incumbent in trouble. The Mason-Dixon/PMR polling organization showed Faircloth's lead dropping from 10 percentage points to 2 points from late September to mid-October. The only other GOP senator at risk in Tuesday's elections is Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (N.Y.). At least five Democratic senators are in serious jeopardy.

The North Carolina contest is important nationally because Republicans can ill afford to lose any seats. They must pick up five more seats to win a filibuster-proof majority of 60, which even GOP leaders now concede is probably beyond their grasp.

It is also a principal battleground in the GOP's effort to solidify its gains in the South, and Democrats see Edwards – with his reassuring drawl, boy-next-door manner and carefully balanced political posture – as the kind of candidate who can keep the party from a total meltdown in the region.

Moreover, it is important to the Washington area because of Faircloth's role as principal overseer of the District of Columbia, where, as chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee for the District, he succeeded in stripping outgoing Mayor Marion Barry of most of his operational authority. Although Faircloth invoked Barry's name in fund-raising letters and in speeches earlier in the campaign, Edwards has ignored the issue and it has played no role in the campaign to date, according to both campaigns.

Unlike many other challengers, Edwards will not be seriously outspent, thanks to his own wealth. Faircloth has raised three times as much, but Edwards has pumped at least $4.8 million of his money into his primary and general election campaigns, with more to come, if necessary, to remain competitive in the race. Faircloth, a wealthy hog farmer and businessman, has also come up with $1 million of his own, vowing he, too, will not be outspent.

In most states, Republicans have avoided using Clinton's personal problems to attack their Democratic rivals, fearing a backlash so long as Clinton continues to enjoy high approval ratings despite the House inquiry into his possible impeachment. But Faircloth needs something to win over and turn out the swing "Jessecrat" Democrats from this area, where Democratic ads attacking Faircloth's votes on Medicare and other issues appear to be having some impact. Clinton seems to fit that bill.

The Clinton attack strategy unfolded as Faircloth fired his pollster and hired hard-hitting GOP consultant Arthur Finkelstein, whose trademark is to characterize all Democrats as "liberal."

Faircloth also began rolling out GOP notables on his behalf, including 1996 presidential nominee Robert J. Dole and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who joined Helms at the dinner here. This week, with an eye on Faircloth's gender gap, Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole (a North Carolinian and Dole's wife) and actor Charlton Heston are highlighting the senator's sponsorship of a special stamp to help raise money for breast cancer research. Former vice president Dan Quayle and former education secretary William J. Bennett are also on tap. By contrast, aside from a couple of visits by Democratic senators, Edwards has been flying solo since Clinton's fund-raiser in July.

Edwards dismisses Faircloth's attack strategy as "desperation" tactics. Like Clinton, Edwards stresses education, health care, environmental protection and Social Security. But he makes a point of his disagreements with the president over other matters, such as anti-tobacco and trade legislation. He argues that North Carolinians will judge him and Faircloth on their merits, not Clinton's.

But Edwards was concerned enough to fire back at Faircloth early this week with ads rejecting the "liberal" label, emphasizing his opposition to the "Clinton tobacco tax" and accusing Faircloth of missing a key vote on tobacco because he was attending a fund-raiser. Faircloth voted with Clinton more than 200 times, one of the ads noted. "Is Lauch a liberal? Let's get serious."