For those reporters with vivid memories of former Sen. Lauch (pronounced lock) Faircloth, it was hard to believe that the North Carolina Republican had served only one term (1992-98).
Perhaps even harder to fathom was that Faircloth — who died Sept. 14 at age 95 — was actually a Democrat who had worked for three Democrat governors before becoming a Republican less than two years before his dramatic election to the Senate.
Upon taking office, he proclaimed himself the more conservative senator from North Carolina — a tongue-in-cheek contrast to the state 's senior Republican senator, conservative icon Jesse Helms.
He was a vigorous opponent to wasteful federal welfare programs and his insistence on "tough love" workfare was pivotal to Democrat President Bill Clinton finally signing Republican-backed welfare reform in 1996 (after twice vetoing similar measures).
As chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, Faircloth led the charge to put many city operations in receivership and turn them over to a financial control board. Controversial Mayor Marion Barry, stripped of most of his power, denounced what he called "the rape of democracy."
"I've heard so many meaningless statements from Marion Barry that one more doesn't matter," Faircloth told the New York Times in 1997, "It's airy persiflage."
Duncan McLauchlin Faircloth dropped out of High Point College (North Carolina) after three months when his father suffered a severe stroke, and young "Lauch" was forced to take over the family's hog farm. His three older brothers, all of whom had served in World War II, had abjured farming for other careers.
The youngest Faircloth took to hog farming like the proverbial duck to water. Within a few years, he had gone from family farmer to increasingly wealthy agribusinessman. He also bought farm and timber land and expanded his agricultural holdings into concrete and construction companies as well as an auto dealership.
He became interested in politics and volunteered for the 1950 campaign of appointed Democrat senator Frank Porter Graham. Considered a liberal by North Carolina standards, Graham faced a stiff primary challenge from conservative Willis Smith (whose press secretary was the young Helms). In a mean-spirited race discussed to this day, Smith unseated Graham with 51 percent.
Drafted by the Army in 1954, Faircloth earned a hardship discharge a year later thanks to his state's Sen. W. Kerr Scott, a Democrat. A grateful Faircloth became Scott's driver in North Carolina and did various political chores for him.
In 1960, Faircloth became an early and vigorous supporter of former State Sen. Terry Sanford for governor. The two had known each other since Sanford had managed then-Gov. Scott's winning race for the Senate in 1954. Following a hard-fought primary campaign, Sanford faced Campbell University Law professor I. Beverly Lake in the runoff.
Lake, who had made his state's case for segregation before the Supreme Court, declared on the campaign trail that "The mixing of our two great races in the classroom and then in the home is not inevitable and is not to be tolerated." Sanford, who ran as a racial moderate, won by about 50,000 votes.
Gov. Sanford named his friend and supporter Faircloth to the state Highway Commission and the farmer-entrepreneur moved up to its chairmanship from 1969-72. In 1976, Democrat Gov. Robert Scott, son of Faircloth's old benefactor Kerr Scott, tapped him to be secretary of commerce.
After years of helping to make governors and then work for them, Faircloth finally decided to become one himself in 1984.
In seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, he lost to Attorney General Rufus Edmisten (who went on to lose in November to Republican Jim Martin).
Increasingly disgusted at the leftward drift of the Democratic Party and sensing his chances of actually winning office were better as a Republican Faircloth switched parties in 1991. He then surprised observers on all sides by winning the Republican U.S. Senate nomination over two opponents with far deeper GOP roots.
The fall campaign was almost a Shakespearean drama, as Faircloth faced his old friend and now Democrat Sen. Terry Sanford.
"Sen. Sanford and Lauch were real friends and [Sanford] had helped him in his race for governor in 1984," Glen Downs, who became Faircloth's legislative assistant in the Senate, recalled to Newsmax, "But times and circumstances changed in 1992."
With his campaign run by Sen. Helms' fearsome political organization The Congressional Club and its "hit 'em where it hurts" chieftain Carter Wrenn, Sanford was slammed for support of big-spending measures and opposition to the Gulf War resolution in 1991. Faircloth deployed chunks of his own fortune (estimated at $22 million) in the campaign and won by 50 to 46%.
Six years later was a different story. Instead of a Democrat with a voting record like Sanford, Faircloth faced a young, attractive trial lawyer and first-time office-seeker named John Edwards. With large numbers of Republican voters staying home because of what many felt was a failure of the GOP-ruled Congress to oppose the Clinton Administration, Faircloth was edged out (51.2 to 47%) by Edwards, who would become the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and was subsequently disgraced by revelations of fathering an illegitimate child while his wife was dying of cancer.
Twice married and twice divorced, Faircloth spent much of his twilight years with his daughter and two grandchildren. He often visited onetime colleague Helms in an assisted living facility. Former aid Downs told us, Faircloth "would ask Sen. Helms if he did something scandalous in the 1950 Senate primary and Helms would reply, 'No, but I know who did.'
"And, he patched things up with Terry Sanford," Downs added.
"Lauch was the exact opposite of the blow-dried, poll-driven politicians who unfortunately litter the American landscape today," said veteran North Carolina political pundit Marc Rotterman, "He had biting wit and he got directly to the point.
And he was effective. "North Carolina and America have lost an American original."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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