He's probably just referring to the prestige that senators like Jesse Helms had. Regardless of his views on race, Helms was a widely respected figure in the Senate.
FTR: When Chris Dodd said that Robert Byrd would have made a "great senator at any time in history," nobody seemed to bother pointing out Byrd's racism and KKK ties, so this is yet another example of the double standard that the liberal media uses on racial issues.
So a Democrat, who spent decades renouncing and apologizing for his past deeds is always going to be just a racist, while a Republican, using racism during his entire career, never reflecting on this, wasn't all that bad?
How very principled.
