A Message of Thanks for Helms

A national advocacy group is collecting signatures for a thank-you card it plans to present to retiring U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, started circulating an e-mail message about the effort this week. In it, Helms’ former Republican colleague, Lauch Faircloth, encourages recipients to send in their names and forward the message to friends and family.

Chuck Fuller, the group’s vice president for public affairs, said his organization champions lower taxes, less government and more freedom.

“Senator Helms has stood for those principles for the last three decades,” explained Fuller, who also managed Faircloth’s 1998 campaign.

Fuller said the group plans to collect names electronically for a few weeks before presenting a card to Helms.

“We had 365 people sign it within the first two hours it was out,” he said.

More information on the group’s efforts is available on its Web site at www.cse.org/action/helms.php

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‘A fine candidate’

It wasn’t an outright endorsement, but President Bush offered some kind words this week about Elizabeth Dole and her potential U.S. Senate candidacy in North Carolina.

“I will tell you, Elizabeth Dole would make a fine candidate,” Bush told reporters. “I competed against her once before, and she was a formidable and fine lady, there’s no question about that. But I’m not going to get involved in the primaries. … If she is the nominee of the Republican Party in North Carolina, I of course will campaign hard for her.”

Dole was briefly a candidate for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination, which Bush of course won.

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Travel log

U.S. Sen. John Edwards logged some more miles this week.

The North Carolina Democrat made stops in Georgia and Alabama, and he’s in Long Island this weekend.

High on the agenda was courting campaign donors, both for his 2004 Senate account and for a 2004 presidential run, if he makes one.

While in Georgia, Edwards also met with Gov. Roy Barnes and members of the legislature, and he appeared before the editorial boards of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

He has been invited to appear Sunday morning on ABC News’ program, “This Week.”

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Talking heads

Raleigh-based Republican political consultant Marc Rotterman will be among the speakers at this year’s Restoration Weekend, an annual gathering of some of the biggest names in the conservative movement.

The event, being held this year at a Colorado Springs resort, started as an alternative to the more left-leaning Renaissance Weekends that have drawn President Clinton, among others, in recent years.

Rotterman is moderating the weekend’s first panel discussion, devoted to Bush’s job performance. Other panelists include Washington-based GOP consultant Charlie Black and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. The event is scheduled for broadcast on C-SPAN.