I've lived in NC all my life and I can tell you this much about Helms: Don't celebrate his political passing until you see the last shovelful of red clay covering his cold, blue body. I won't rejoice until the deadline for reelection is past, because in the past he has always decided that the country simply cannot survive without him and run again despite early rumblings of retirement. I don't care how OLD he is, he really believes we'll all go straight to hell without his hand on the wheel of morality. When he dies I will go straight to the store for a bottle of champagne, and I will toast his passing with a song: "Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead!"