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.