Message for newly elected: This is just the beginning

On election night in 1972, a bemused Walter Cronkite told America, "Down in North Carolina a fellow named Jesse Helms has just been elected to the United States Senate." Cronkite had a reason to be surprised. North Carolina hadn't sent a Republican to the Senate since the days of Reconstruction.

Sen. Helms' reception in Washington wasn't much more enthusiastic. It was quickly apparent that he was no establishment Republican. It was soon clear that if he was going to be a member of "the club" it would have to be a club that he organized.

That's exactly what he did, bringing together the handful of senators who shared his political views to form the Congressional Steering Committee. Years later, Helms would joke that their group was so small that their first meetings could have been held in a phone booth.

Being a part of such a lopsided minority would have been more than a little intimidating for the average politician, especially one who relies on the polls or the media to measure success. But Helms was cut from a different cloth. He went to Washington to be a change agent.

He started his work by helping to change the practice of moving legislation with voice votes. That practice made it easy for senators to say what voters wanted to hear and then support legislation they would have opposed. Roll-call votes created a record that voters could examine and see for themselves whether their senator's campaign rhetoric had anything in common with their actual performance. With the roll call in place, Helms was perfectly comfortable with his record of "losses." He knew that informed voters would make good decision about whether to re-elect senators who said one thing, but did the opposite.

TRENDING: Trump declassifies Russia-investigation documents

Helms' string of losing votes on important issues, like the balanced-budget amendment he first proposed in 1973, and which gained support from just 43 other senators, led some to tag him as ineffective. In fact, his efforts were more effective than they could have imagined. By ignoring his detractors and staying focused on his goals, Helms made it possible for others who shared his principles to take their places in the Senate and the House of Representatives and the White House. At the time of his retirement, the fellow from North Carolina was chairman of the Senate's powerful Foreign Relations Committee. Whether they applauded his accomplishments or were happy to see him return to North Carolina, no one in Washington or any other world capitol could have described Jesse Helms as ineffective. He was one of the most consequential political figures of his time.

What can the congressional newcomers in the Class of 2010 learn from his story? What is the secret of this kind of lasting leadership? It's not a secret at all. Helms spelled it out in a speech presented to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 14, 1976. If he were alive today to welcome these newcomers whose own conservative values have propelled them into service, he would offer them these same words of warning, advice and challenge:

"With all of our accomplishments, with all of our wealth, with all of our technology, we cannot fulfill our leadership role without a firm conviction that our cause is meritorious. We must believe that we deserve to win – or more specifically, that we, as individuals, have the moral strength and courage to do what is necessary to win.

Thus leadership goes beyond mere competence. Leadership is something that calls forth the soul in man, that calls him to exert his abilities beyond the level of compromise and beyond the adjustment of competing values.

If your values are based upon shifting relationships or upon mere self-interest, you instinctively feel that one cause is as good as another or that someone else has as much right to win as you do. So instinctively you hedge, you pull back, you concede small points because small points are negotiable. But soon you are conceding large points, and ultimately you are wildly dealing not for victory but for time.

Ladies and gentlemen, time is not on our side. The only thing that is on our side is our inner strength, an inner strength that the majority of American leadership has failed to tap. Our material resources can be deployed for victory only if our spiritual strength can be mobilized.

That is why the issue today is leadership. Competence is a compromise, and compromise is a confession of failure."

If the Class of 2010 refuses to settle for competence and focuses on following our nation's founding principles, they will do well as leaders and as effective representatives of the people they serve.

John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Center Foundation, is a William & Mary and UNC-C graduate who most recently was a consultant in Washington, D.C., before joining the Helms Center. His commentaries have been published in numerous national publications.