Randall Terry
Announcement of Candidacy for the Democratic Presidential Nomination
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Washington, DC
January 20, 2011
[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION TRANSCRIPT]

MISSY REILLY SMITH: Welcome, everyone, welcome.

My name is Missy Reilly Smith.  Some of you in the media may have recognized me.  Recently I ran as a delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives here in Washington, DC against pro-child-killing Eleanor Holmes Norton. 

So before I introduce Rabbi Levin, I'd like to say a word about Randall Terry.  I've known Randall Terry for years now, and Randall Terry is a scholar and a gentleman.  And despite the fact that many of you in the media have reported on him, you may not know the things that I know, because I know him so personally.  Randall is a devoted father and husband.  There's an old saying that if you want to know what a man's worth is, you look at his wife.  Randall Terry's wife Andrea is beautiful inside and out.  She has four beautiful boys that she home schools.  She's fiercely loyal; she's fiercely faithful.  Randall Terry is a pro-life hero.  He is a voice for the voiceless, the defenseless, the most innocent, as Mother Theresa said, the poorest of the poor.  Randall Terry will go down in history as a pro-life hero and leader. 

And now for Rabbi Levin.  Rabbi is a spokesperson for the Rabbinical Alliance of America, a thousand rabbis, and he is calling for spiritual civil war.  Number one, Rabbi ran against Koch for the number two most important position in America as mayor of New York, and in Koch's book Peace, he devotes two pages to Rabbi Levin.  Rabbi Levin has international notoriety.  Most recently he backed Paladino until Paladino backed out of his pro-family position, and he called for an enormous press conference in front of St. Patrick's and got international coverage.  And thirdly, Rabbi Levin for 32 years has been the most motivational speaker at the March for Life, where there are 300,000 people who gather, and as he did last year he, in reference to the health care bill, he said we do not try, don't you dare, don't you dare try to make us pay for abortions.  And he motivated 300,000 men, women and children chanting "Don't you dare.  Don't you dare, make us pay for abortions."  So I give you Rabbi Levin.

RABBI YEHUDA LEVIN: May it be the will of our Lord that the utterances of my mouth and the expressions of my heart find favor in your eyes, God our redeemer

Hello, my name is Rabbi Yehuda Levin.  That's spelled Y-E-H-U-D-A-L-E-V-I-N.  For the better part of the last three decades I've represented over one thousand rabbis, the combined membership of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, and the 70-year old organization, and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, over a century old, the oldest rabbinic organization in this country.   Of course obviously I cannot represent them today at this event, although I do at the March for Life and at other events.  I'm speaking though on behalf of, I believe, well over a million orthodox Jews.

I'm here today as a religious Jew and an proud and grateful American, to support the candidacy of pro-life and family values Democrat Randall Terry for President of the United States.

As one of millions of disenfranchised, Catholics, Jews, Evangelicals, Muslims, we want to see the party of panderers to deviancy and no choice for millions of pro-pre-born babies executed, we want to see that party return to decency and respect for life and family values.  Randall Terry for President.

I'm prepared for R&R in all 50 states.  America is in a moral free fall.  I'm not talking about rest and relaxation; I'm talking about Randall and the Rabbi, the Judeo and Christian ethic.  The faces of our country.  Randall Terry for President.

A Democratic Party that already wouldn't allow Gov. Bob Casey, a pro-life Catholic, some 20 years ago the right to speak, and that basically fired a social radical like Sen. Joe I'm going to homosexualize the military and kill the babies in the third trimester Lieberman.  I apologize for this, America, but they're so radical and crazy, it's time for a return to Democratic values.  Randall Terry for President.

If religious leaders would be as half committed and dedicated and uncompromising to their religious values as Randall Terry, the problem of abortion in America, 50 million strong, would have long since been resolved.  Randall Terry for President.

I am going to be calling on religious leaders throughout this great country, challenging them to stand beside Randall Terry in his quest for a return to normalcy and regular good old-fashioned decent family values.

President Obama is a radical social engineer who carries the mark of Cain, the first anti-lifer in history.  Obama seeks to brand all of us Americans as killer Cains.  Randall Terry is able to return respect for innocence and respect for life.  I give you the man who could and should be the next president of the United States—pro-life and family Democrat, Randall Terry for President.  [applause]  Randall Terry for President.


RANDALL TERRY: Thank you, Rabbi.

We will run ads on the Super Bowl in 2012 that show dead babies, the victims of abortion.  We will with the help of God bring America face to face with the victims of Obama's policies.  This campaign is about human rights, ladies and gentlemen.  It'll be first and foremost about the human rights of the babies that are being brutally slaughtered and thrown in dumpsters and landfills. 

But it will also be about the human rights of the slave labor force on Obama's plantation.  We have a federal plantation.  There's always work.  There's always a roof over your head as long as you'll be faithful to stay on the plantation.  Well there's a lot of slave laborers, myself included, that would like real freedom again.

We will also focus on President Obama's foreign policy.  We are literally, because of this government's oil policy with Saudi Arabia, we are funding terrorism all over the world. The single greatest economic purveyor of terrorism are the wealthy and certain elements of the Saudi family who are funding terrorist groups across the world.  So every time we go to the gas pump in America, some of our money is being used to kill fellow Americans or innocent men and women around the world.  This is treachery of the highest order. 

We will focus on our trade relations with China.  I actually thought it was a comedy skit to hear President Obama talking about human rights in China.  The President Obama that authorized money to go to international Planned Parenthood, who is helping to fund China's forced abortion program.  Was this some kind of a cruel joke?

I intend to use every resource at my disposal, and I'll tell you this, then we'll take questions—  The temptation to give money to this campaign is going to prove too great to resist, to pro-lifers and to Tea Party activists, because in a Democratic primary I can pummel Obama's policies and show him to be the arch-promoter of child-killing in the Western hemisphere.  And, while me defeating him is obviously a long shot, we can define the political debate for years to come by one ad on the Super Bowl.

And finally, while I may or may not defeat him in the total Democratic primary, I do have a goal of winning in Iowa.  It's a real simple strategy: Democrat for a day.  The Iowa caucuses are designed so that people—Republicans, Democrats and Independents—can walk into the caucus the night of the caucus and say "tonight, I'm a Democrat."  And there are Republican pro-lifers and there are Independent pro-lifers and there are Democrat pro-lifers, and there are Tea Party activists in all three of the realms I just told you, and together we can take this primary train, with pro-life and Tea Party values down Democrat rails.  Even if I get 30 or 40 percent of the vote in Iowa, it's a massive embarrassment to President Obama, and it shows the level of voter rage against this man.

Any questions?

Q. [inaudible]

Say the first part again.

Q. [inaudible]

Oh, no, no, no.  This is for 2012.  So we have over a year to raise the money.  A 30-second spot on the Super Bowl is $2.5 million, and we will raise that.  We'll raise more than that.  In the next 72 hours literally millions of e-mails will go out to start raising money for this campaign.

Q. [inaudible] small donors?

There'll be a lot of 50- and 100-dollar donors, but it's no secret there are a lot of wealthy pro-lifers.  So, $2,400 is the max, for a man, $2,400 for a woman; if they're married they can both give $2,400, and I would love to talk to you afterwards about your first contribution.

Next question, for me or Rabbi Levin please.

Q. So why not run as a Republican?

I don't want to quarrel with Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee.  I want to focus on the bad man, Obama.  Obama is the central figure of voter rage.  There are people, myself included, who loathe this presidency.  By going against him in a Democratic primary, I can focus on him like a laser beam, and I will.

Q. Your website clearly states that you are a Republican.  When did you change to a Democrat?

When I registered in Virginia, I went to register as a Democrat, and as you all know—we live here in the area—in Virginia you're not allowed to register by party.  So everyone just registers.  And we also contacted the party to ask is there some mechanism by which we can join the party, and they said no, just vote Democrat.  So we're going to vote Democrat, and [laughs] we're going to run Democrat.

The Democratic Party has traditionally stood for the little guy.  The baby is the little guy.

On my website you will see three prototype ads.  We will also produce commercials that deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism being funded by American petro dollars.  We will run ads talking about, in honest terms the end of entitlements.  We will talk about real legislative victory, not this charade yesterday that happened with the Republican-led House.

My challenge to Mr. Boehner and Mr. Pence is simple.  Don't vote on something that you know you can't win.  Vote on something you know you can.  Defund Planned Parenthood.  You control the purse strings.

I want to say two other things, then take other questions.

One is what you see is what you get here.  The way I am talking to you is the way I talk in my living room, and with my friends.  The way I talk in my living room with my friends is the way I'm going to talk to the media.  I'm tired of people hiding what they mean words and blather that have no content.

And the second thing is we will be running comedy ads.  In addition to the fiercely intense ads that show the victims of child killing, we will run comedy ads dealing with economic issues, light-hearted ads I should say.  If you go to the web site—  David, are they up?  If you go to the Tea Party link, you'll see some fundraising ads that we're running on various conservative and Tea Party streaming networks online.  You'll also be able to see my ad that we created in 1998, which are my bona fides for being Tea Party before Tea Party was hip.  But those ads were done with professional actors and you'll see.  They're fun; they're funny.  And we intend to focus on economic issues like the end of entitlements; not reining them in, but the end of them.  God told Adam, you're going to work by the sweat of your brow.  Obama says well you're not going to work for just yourself by the sweat of the brow, but for those other six people.

Any other questions?

Q. What other issues...[inaudible]

Marriage is between a man and a woman.  End of discussion.

We'll focus on the fact that this bloated bureaucracy—  I mean look across the street.  The Department of Agriculture, where we spend tax dollars to encourage farmers to not grow crops.  It's absurd and it's obscene.

We will focus on a theocentric libertarian platform.  A theocentric libertarian platform.  Ron Paul's done a great job getting a libertarian message out, but he's not theocentric, and so he goes off the plantation sometimes.  The Constitution of the United States of America is a phenomenal document, but it is not the primary document that was given to the human race to govern themselves.  That would be the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount.  And I will run an unashamedly theocentric campaign.  Just as Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence talked about God the law giver, God the creator, God the judge, God the provider, and laid that out as the foundation for American jurisprudence and for America's very existence, I will walk in that shadow happily, as a Jeffersonian Democrat that says, listen, we're not going to push God and the Ten Commandments out of the public square; they are the foundation of civilization.  Because if you strip the public square of the Ten Commandments, you end up having a pagan public square.  Go to the places that have tried it.  China.  Cuba.  It doesn't look so good.

All right, Rabbi Levin and I will be available for any of you who have comments privately.  This weekend—  Where's that flyer?  Where's one of our envelopes?  Can I have one of our envelopes, please?  Thank you.  We have 55,000 of these envelopes printed, right now.  We have about 30 people that, beginning tomorrow night at pro-life events all over Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland, we will be handing out these 55,000 envelopes to hard-core pro-lifers to begin raising money.

And I'll say one other thing.  And this, ma'am from CNN this kind of ties in with your original question.  Pro-lifers have been saying for years, we've got to show the babies; we've got to show the victims.  But networks are allowed to say, no we won't run that ad.  Except 60 days out from a general and 45 days out from a primary.  We will show the victims of child-killing, and pro-lifers are going to throw money at this, because this campaign is not about me, it's about these babies.

Thank you for coming.  We're available if any of you want to talk to us privately.  God bless you all and long life to you.  [Applause].


speaking to reporters afterwards...

"We have two RVs...[inaud.]   We will be going in March to begin...[inaud.]

...one of the reasons that this campaign is going to be so effective, all of these people that you see here, many of them are practically full time, but they're volunteering.  A lot of these campaigns raise enormous sums of money; they have bloated staffs, they have exorbitant expense accounts.  We're not going to do that.  We're going to take the money and we're going to be as lean and mean as possible, and I will go on the ground in Iowa, and we will go to as many counties as we possibly can.  My wife was born and raised in Nebraska, so she's saying let's go and hang out there; I can go up and see my mom and dad and family.

So Iowa is a very conservative state.  There are many people there that are furious with this president, and we will make the case that to vote for me in the caucus is one of the best things that people could do to show their contempt for this presidency and for the direction that our country is headed.

Q. ...It seems like a lot of Tea Partiers are sort of getting away from social issues these days.  Do you feel like your having to sort of fire them up on...

No, you bring up a great point.  What you have is is you have people like Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich trying to steal, literally buy and steal the Tea Party movement.  And they're corrupting a few select people to stay, no, stay away from the social issues; they're too controversial.  We want to focus on money.  Baloney.  Human rights.  The right to life, civil liberties.  Those are the foundations of this Republic.  So the question for Tea Party activists is whether or not they're going to become the mistress of the Republican Party.  And we've been down this path.  I was one of those that were elated with the Contract with America and with the Gingrich takeover in '94.  I think that on their tomb it said Veni, Vici, Vende.  He came.  He saw.  He sold out.  You tell me one fundamental change in the direction of our country as a result of the '94 takeover of the House.  It's a joke.  So the Tea Party will seal its own doom if it becomes the mistress of the Republican Party.  It must put principle ahead of Party, and it must put the right to life, defense of marriage, and the centrality of theocentric law as its foundation.  If it does not then it will go the way of all of these trite little moments of political unrest.

Q. How about the guy who are in charge of Congress now.  What do you think of their record on abortion?  They, Boehner and Cantor are talking about passing a law to make permanent the Hyde Amendment, so it wouldn't have to be renewed every year.  Do you think the House Republicans are strong enough on abortion rights?

No.  I think that the House Republicans, many of them, not some of the new Members, but many of them have used the pro-life movement like a pimp uses a prostitute, to raise money to have a good time.  Here's the bottom line.  If this Congress does not defund Planned Parenthood, then they are a charade.  They control the purse strings.  It's really simple.  So we're up the right now, for the first hundred days our team is on Capitol Hill right now lobbying, interviewing them.  And we're saying to them, look, make this a hill to die on.  Your vote yesterday about health care, that was all window dressing...  Pass a bill that has not a dime for Planned Parenthood in the budget.  And then when the Senate tries to put it back in, in the reconciliation, or rather in the conference committee, say to them no.  And gather a group of people around Mike Pence who say we will not vote for a budget, we will not vote for a continuing resolution if one dime goes to Planned Parenthood.  End of story.  So that's a doable goal.  And if you go to BoehnerTeaParty.com, we put up a site, BoehnerTeaParty.com, showing his quotes from this last summer, 2010.  He said, economics isn't the number one issue, human life is.  All right, Mr. Boehner, talk is cheap.  Let's see you put your money where your mouth is.

Q. Have you alreadly planned your first trip to Iowa?

We're looking at mid-March.

Q. And beyond Iowa, are you going to go...?

We're going to go— our original trip will include Iowa.  Actually Rabbi Levin and I are going to do a New York trip in early February.  So New York in early February.  Then we'll do Iowa and some states as we drop south; we'll spend time in Florida and South Carolina.

Q. And what about New Hampshire?

Oh, yeah absolutely.  But it's too d--m cold.  Let's just admit it.  It's too cold.  We'll wait just at least 'til spring for New Hampshire.  My wife says to me why do you take these trips to the north in the winter?  Winter we'll go to Florida and then in the spring and summer we'll go to the north.

Q. What sort of welcome do you anticipate from the Democratic Party?

Well there are many Catholic Democrats who are elated with a pro-life candidacy.  Elated.  There are disenfranchised Democrats.  The Democratic Party is in control of a lunatic fringe.  All right?  But it's the party leadership that's the lunatic fringe, not the rank and file of the Democratic Party.  There are Democrats that are pro-life.  There are Democrats that are for marriage between a husband and a wife.  I mean Rabbi Levin is a life-long Democrat...  So there are many Democrats, rank and file that will get behind this campaign, and send a message to the lunatic fringe, the Howard Deans et al. that are running this party.

Q. You're going to run this Super Bowl ad, but you've indicated that you're going to stretch every penny.  Is that a wise use of resources?

There is no better use of the money than to run one 30-second ad on the Super Bowl.  None.  It will alter the political horizon for years to come, because 100 million people will see it.  And we will force the debate like it has never happened before.  The drumroll of the controversy leading up to it and after it will be worth every penny. 

I'll say one other thing, strategically.  Every social revolution that has been victorious—the end of slavery, women's voting rights, end of child labor, end of segregation—they all used incindiary images to awaken the conscience of the nation.  I am following that playbook to be victorious in making child-killing illegal.