Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry wears a grim reaper costume as he leads a protest against the House health care reform bill.

Randall Terry is giving a tour of his office, a small room on the ground floor of the $1.3 million home he rents in northern Virginia. The room is packed. Every inch of wall space is taken up by books or personal treasures–stones “liberated from places where Muslim armies destroyed Christian churches,” the complete works of Winston Churchill, the complete works of Theodore Roosevelt, small metal busts of the men themselves. Terry reaches to a top shelf and grabs one volume of Muhammad al-Tabari’s history of Islam. “It’s one of the definitive histories,” says Terry. “I believe that Islam is a threat to the world, and I want to address it.”

Getting ready to leave the room — he has to finish a paper he’s writing about “Augustinian realism” — Terry grabs for something else. It’s a small plastic shark with a flashlight attached to its head, a gift from Terry’s daughter. He flips on the light and tries out his best impression of Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” trilogy of slapstick comedies.

“C’mon, people!” he says. “Gotta have the data! Can I please have a shark with a frickin’ laser beam?”

The man who personified the anti-abortion rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s loves to kid around. It disarms reporters, and it wins over the activists who use the lower level of Terry’s home as the base for Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex. (In Latin, it roughly means “Insurrection Until Death.”) In May, People for the American Way released video of Terry closing a press conference on the murdered abortionist George Tiller — Tiller “reaped what he sowed,” said Terry. In response, Terry convened a new press conference where he served Guinness and chicken wings.

For several years, especially after Terry served as the spokesman for the parents of the late Terri Schiavo in 2005, his personality and his antics, as well as his financial and legal decisions, led him to be ostracized from the movement. That’s fine by him — he’s suing the current leadership of Operation Rescue, his original organization, and without much prompting he’ll call leaders of groups like Americans United for Life “a bunch of harlots.” While they deride him or distance themselves from him, Terry is capitalizing on the conservative uprising against President Obama and congressional Democrats. When cameras show up to cover a Tea Party or a health care protest, Terry and his activists are there. If reporters pretend his protests don’t exist, Terry’s small staff churn out their own video and post it on YouTube.

“I think there is a certain element of the media that does not want us to be seen,” said Terry. According to him, the current and unexpected political trouble that pro-abortion rights activists have found themselves in — chiefly the Stupak Amendment that prohibits abortion funding in a public health care plan — is the result of ostentatious and unyielding pressure from activists like him. The newfound political role of Catholic bishops? That’s their attempt to undo the damage they did themselves by not opposing Barack Obama in 2008. “We’re not here for a place at the table. We’re here to take the table and smash it, turn it into firewood.”

Sometimes, rhetoric like that gets Terry in front of the camera. The office walls of Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex are decorated with newspaper clippings–mostly front pages–about Terry and his successes. More files of newspaper and magazine covers are stacked on bookshelves. Terry and his activists draw a clean line between that kind of coverage and coverage in “the ghetto press,” the Catholic and anti-abortion rights media, whose readers presumably made up their minds about this kind of activism years ago. Their strategy–a combination of slapstick skits, counter-protests, and sit-ins–has increasingly won the attention of liberal blogs hungry for images of conservatives gone wild. On August 25, Terry and three other members of Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex attended an town hall meeting in Reston, Va. The media coverage went almost exactly the way they wanted. Before the event began, Terry and the others acted out a skit in which Terry, playing a doctor, teamed up with a Barack Obama impersonator to “murder” babies and an old woman. Once inside, Terry shouted down Howard Dean before being forcibly removed from the venue.

“Our goal was to keep Dean from talking,” said Terry. “And it worked! He didn’t talk!”

Missy Smith, a longtime activist who has taken a large role in Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex, recreated the slogans that got them kicked out. “‘Obama! Abortion is murder!’” said Smith. “They said they heard it in the back of the room. It was very cool.”

After that, the skits got wilder. Terry would dress up as the grim reaper, pleading with passersby to have abortions. Joshua Reading, a 28-year-old seminary graduate who recently joined the flock, recorded a Halloween-themed YouTube video asking activists to create effigies of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “burning in hell.” It was so successful that it was condemned by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It even won respect from Jill Stanek, a prominent anti-abortion rights activist and Terry critic. “While the other side scoffs at Terry,” she wrote, “and we pro-lifers back away in embarrassment, the day may actually come when Pelosi and Reid find themselves in hell and remember this. Then it won’t be so funny.”

On October 29, TalkingPointsMemo posted four and a half minutes of footage featuring Terry and other protesters acting out a skit mocking Reid and Pelosi. On November 5, after joining the “Super Bowl of Freedom” held on the Capitol steps to rally opposition to the Democrats’ health care reform bill, the activists marched over to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office and tore up pages from the bill. Capitol police arrested them one by one; it was all captured for their YouTube account.

“We told security that we were going to deliver the bills to [Rep.] Ron Paul [R-Tex],” laughed Missy Smith. “It’s incredible that we got them through.”

Smith admitted, with some regret, that the protest got little media attention after the tragedy at Fort Hood took over the headlines. But with every media hit they get, Terry’s activists are absolutely convinced that their approach, an aggressive approach, is working.

“We make the national news, outside of the ghetto press,” said Reading. “Our message reaches everyone.”

Andrew Beacham, a young, bearded activist who has been ejected from four of President Obama’s speeches–including his University of Notre Dame commencement speech and a health care event in Maryland–was just as adamant. He came into Terry’s fold after a disappointing stint as a Republican activist and a Tea Party organizer in Indiana. Suiting up and heckling the president of the United States, he said, made him aware of how “in history, there are always people who are willing to step up and be the tip of the spear.” Shouting down the president of the United States is more effective than nearly any form of public protest, said Beacham, especially when the president is hesitant about how to respond.

“The teleprompter doesn’t tell him how to respond to heckler,” laughed George Offerman, an activist who’d brought his home-brewed beer to Terry’s home.

The media savvy among Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex activists comes across immediately. They talk about Gallup polls that show support for legal abortion dropping, Politico stories about Democratic infighting, and Onion videos that make President Obama look like a fool. Near the end of their meeting with TWI, they watched episode nine of Terry’s self-produced television series “Insurrecta Nex.” Filmed in a small Ohio studio before an audience of Terry’s supporters–Offerman, Reading, and Terry’s wife Andrea all make appearances–the episodes are stylistic echoes of Glenn Beck’s Fox News show. Terry tells jokes and tries on funny voices as he moves around the camera, retelling American history for lessons on how to “stomp out legalized child-killing.” One episode about the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party closes with Terry literally “dancing on the grave” of “Roe v. Wade.”

All of the media training, and all of the new interest from reporters and liberal blogs, will play a part in Terry’s next project. In 2010, Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex activists will run for federal office in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Terry ran for Congress in 1998, mounting an anti-tax, economic conservative campaign with almost no talk of abortion. “Everyone in the district knew me as Mr. Pro-Life,” Terry told TWI. “I wanted them to know that I could represent them in Washington on something more than dead babies.” The plan for 2010 is just the opposite: It’s to get TV ads running in the beltway, with brutal imagery of aborted fetuses beaming into voters’ homes.

“We’re going to re-define the pro-life debate in the 2010 election,” said Terry. “If we spend $500,000 or $3 million dollars on media in these races, the media will be apoplectic. They will not be able to ignore us.”

There is something you can do right now…you will find attached an invitation to an event scheduled for Dec. 5, featuring Joe Arpaio, “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” “Sheriff Joe” has very graciously agreed to raise funds for the “Freedom In Truth Trust.” The FIT Trust is the fund that was established to help us satisfy legal debts incurred during the 2006 campaign. You can read more about it at http://www.jdhayworth.com/fit-trust.html

You may not live in Arizona…but no matter where you call home, would you respond to the attached invitation and please send a contribution to the FIT Trust?

That would certainly be a factor in the decision we will make at the “Hayworth Hacienda!”

The irony of using the Spanish word in an appeal for a possible immigration-focused Senate bid is really something.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Arizona voters finds Arpaio, famed for his crackdowns on illegal immigrants, leading Goddard, the state’s current attorney general, by 12 points – 51% to 39%. Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

According to the survey, Goddard leads Republican Gov. Jan Brewer by a comfortable nine-point margin, and Goddard is virtually tied with State Treasurer Dean Martin. Brewer is the only one of the possible candidates who is officially in the race.

With numbers like this, could Arpaio be enticed to run for governor? And could he win?

Rumors have been swirling in Arizona for the past few months that Arpaio is mulling a gubernatorial bid, fueled by his antipathy for Goddard. The 77-year-old Arpaio was first elected in 1992, and he won re-election in 2008 by a commanding 13-point margin, with 55 percent of the vote. During that race, Arpaio raised more than $600,000 — an eye-popping sum for a countywide election. Effectively a modern-day political boss, “Sheriff Joe” is well-known for his heavy-handed tactics to combat illegal immigration and bragging about the harsh conditions in county detention facilities. He has launched investigations of numerous political opponents, including Goddard, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the Phoenix New Times and the Maricopa County Superior Court.

While Arpaio remains extremely popular in Maricopa County — the home of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe accounts for approximately 61 percent of Arizona’s population — Goddard has already proven himself in statewide races, having been elected attorney general in 2002, and re-elected in 2006 with 60 percent of the vote (pdf). A poll released last month by the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and KAET found Arpaio had a 61 percent approval rating among Maricopa County voters, while the same survey found 55 percent of Arizona voters approve of Goddard’s performance. Arizona has been trending Democratic in recent years, but a Gallup poll from January found party identification in the state was essentially a dead heat, and one would be hard-pressed to find anybody in Arizona without a strong opinion about Arpaio.

All of this seems to confirm Rasmussen’s findings: If Arpaio got into the race against Goddard, he would stand a pretty good chance of winning. It’s also a safe bet that Arpaio would raise a lot of money from out-of-state illegal immigration opponents.

The Obama administration has already clashed with Arpaio on a couple of occasions. In March, the Justice Department announced it was opening an investigation into allegations of racial profiling and unlawful searches and seizures, and last month Arpaio was stripped of his authority to enforce federal immigration laws under the controversial 287(g) program.

But if the Justice Department thought Arpaio was a handful as sheriff of Maricopa County, just imagine what he could do with control of the state’s Department of Public Safety, and Republicans in control of both houses of the state legislature.

(Via Eric Kleefeld)

This post has been updated.

“I have no idea,” said Fiorina. “You’ll have to ask Sarah Palin. She’s on a mega book tour right now — that’s exciting to see. I share Sarah Palin’s values, and I suspect, I hope, that Sarah Palin thinks it’s important to win. That’s up to her.”

Audio is here, if the link below does not work.

Paul’s father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), is one of the very few Republicans pushing for the closure of Gitmo. The Rand Paul press release was pointed out to me by a supporter of the elder Paul, who’s furious that libertarian-minded donors are flocking to the younger Paul.

It’s a surprising poll because only 24 percent of state Republicans have a negative view of McCain. He’s suffering from a backlash against everyone currently in Washington. And it’s been two years since McCain broke with the GOP base and backed comprehensive immigration reform. If that comes up again in 2010, as many expect it to, McCain could face real problems with Arizona voters.

Charlie Crist – 47 percent (-10)
Marco Rubio – 37 percent (+26)

Likely Democratic candidate Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), according to Kos, is a non-factor in the general election.

The survey found 62 percent of voters say tax cuts will create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21 percent say spending can do that. This cuts against the long-standing economic theories that have guided the White House and Democrats since the beginning of the Obama administration. More good news for Republicans; 51 percent believe canceling the rest of the stimulus money would create more jobs, and only 32 percent — rather less than the Democrats’ base vote — want to keep spending it.

Yeah, my only comment on that is that the president is doing himself no favors by spending millions of dollars to block the release of documents surrounding his birth certificate. And as long as the president keeps fighting tooth and nail to prevent the release of such things, I think people are going to remain skeptical. Now, that having been said, the Natural Born Citizen requirement of the Constitution was never put into statutory, enabling language, so there is no statutory requirement for secretaries of state around the country to verify one’s citizenship eligibity when one files to run for president of the United States. And so clearly, from a political standpoint, it was probably incumbent on Sen. [Hillary Rodham] Clinton’s campaign to push the issue back when they raised it. And having been unsuccessful, it seems to me it’s kind of hard to undo.

Just like the impeachment, with [President Bill] Clinton, my concern over issues like this is that, just as with Clinton, there are policy matters that I profoundly disagree with the current president on. And to the degree that we get distracted into these secondary questions, it begins to allow the president and his allies to shift the debate on an issue that is going to be very hard for us to win, while at the same time allowing them to escape the sort of scrutiny on the policies that we need to engage in to win. To win on our issues.

I was a little surprised that DeVore didn’t knock this down harder; it seems to be stinging him today.

UPDATE: A statement from the candidate:

I said ten years ago that the move to impeach and convict President Clinton was a distraction from countering his liberal policies. So too is the effort now to question President Obama’s legitimacy. Make no mistake, the Constitution is clear: Barack Obama is the President. The more time Carly Fiorina’s campaign spends on this side issue, the less time we have to work against the far-left agenda and failed policies of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Boxer.