Advice for Hagan: Hep 'em all

As Sen.-elect Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, prepares to move to Washington to succeed Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., it's worth considering one hallmark of successful Senators: They're known for first-rate constituent services in the nation's capital. Most every member of Congress with any hopes of staying in the House or Senate understands that, at least on a theoretical level. And my guess is that every member already believes he or she has one of the best constituent-service offices in the nation's history -- staffers who will help run interference with Social Security problems, or passport problems, or Veterans Administration cases, or just rounding up an American flag that's flown over the Capitol for an elementary school class.

But some senators are a lot better at it than others. During the past few years we heard regularly from folks who claimed to have written Dole's office about one matter or another, often but not always seeking help, and who said they never heard back. That's the kind of thing that may be a matter of a simple mistake or a lost communication, but it can also turn a supporter into an opponent. Perhaps it's one of the things that turned Elizabeth Dole into a one-term senator.

My guess is Hagan's uncle, former Sen. Lawton Chiles, D-FL, had a pretty good operation, too. She saw it from the inside when she worked there for a while, so no doubt she understands the value.

Hagan ought to give some thought to how the offices of two conservative icons ran their constituent service organizations. The late Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., had a crackerjack outfit that had the reputation of jumping to help any North Carolinian with a problem in Washington or with any federal agency.

And the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., may have set the gold standard. I was reading about this recently in a book of reminiscences, "The Centennial Senators." Lee Bandy, reporter and columnist for The State in newspaper (and an old friend from my Washington days), says that when Thurmond was asked what he liked best about the job, he would always say, "Hep'n people."

Duke Short, Thurmond's top aide who pulled the book together after Thurmond's death, said Thurmond used to tell his staff, "It doesn't matter to me what your job is. We're here to help people. And if you can't help people, we're going to help you go somewhere else real quick." Short recalled that Thurmond always gave this answer for how he'd like to be remembered: "Hep'n people! All the people."

Evidently it didn't matter who you were. As Short noted, if you were from South Carolina, or went to school in South Carolina, or once lived in South Carolina, or were related to people from South Carolina, or had driven through South Carolina, or had once been to the beach in South Carolina, that was good enough to get help from Thurmond's office. I think that's essentially the way Helms' office handled the job. It evidently didn't matter who you were or whether you liked what the senators did on other issues. If you needed help, you got it.

Considering that Thurmond served in the Senate for about half a century, and that Helms served 30 years and never lost a race, a new senator with hopes for a long tenure in Washington ought to think pretty carefully about the value of hep'n people.