Posted on 10/13/2012 9:24:16 PM PDT by ElIguana
(ACN) The founder of Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, is back in the national spotlight and has found an ingenious and novel way to literally force television stations across the nation to run his hard-hitting and controversial pro-life commercials. His strategy? ... find a cadre of pro-life activists who are willing to run for Congress and "carpet-bomb" pro-life commercials, under the guise of campaign ads, across the nation.
The rationale behind Terry's strategy is that television outlets are prohibited by federal law from refusing to run a campaign ad from a candidate for federal office or from asking the candidate to edit the content of the campaign ad. The result? ... television stations, which have declined to run his pro-life ads in years past, are now running Terry's pro-life ads, unedited and uncensored.
But Terry isn't simply running commercials in as many as 21 swing states to advance life. His "Operation Throw Obama Out," which is being supported by private donations from pro-life individuals across the country, is also designed to suppress the Obama vote as Terry is opting, when possible, to run these commercials in the time slots of programs that are often viewed by Christians who, in his estimation, would be inclined to vote for Barack Obama.
Matt Labash with The Weekly Standard, who spent some time with Terry, writes: "Terry’s plan, then, is to wage what he baldly calls a 'voter suppression campaign.' He knows full well his ads will turn off large swaths of voters. But he’s only playing for a segment of the electorate—the 54 percent of Catholics and the 26 percent of evangelicals who voted for “the quintessential child killer in the Western Hemisphere” in 2008.
"His ads are designed to drown those voters in shame and the blood of dead babies. They can vote for Mitt Romney or not. He doesn’t really care. 'They can vote for Mickey Mouse, they can vote for their mothers,' Terry says. 'Just don’t vote for Obama.'"
Can the Terry strategy work? Labash writes: "He [Terry] challenged Obama in Democratic primaries [in Oklahoma] to force the FCC to allow his dead-baby ads to run during the Super Bowl in states where he could get on the ballot. Earlier this year, he did, in fact, beat Obama outright in 14 counties in Oklahoma... it was a closed primary, and Terry’s efforts were good for 18 percent of the vote."
Additionally, as confirmed by Labash, Terry ran ads when his vice-presidential candidate, pro-life activist Missy Smith, ran for Congress in 2010 "against Eleanor Holmes Norton in Washington, D.C., in which Missy carpet-bombed the local airwaves with 225 graphic ads. This garnered thousands of death threats and 6 percent of the vote.
Labash adds that Terry "is running against Rep. Alcee Hastings in Florida as well. Hastings’s district can reach the core of Obama’s support in South Florida, which encompasses nearly a third of the population of the state. Terry’s internal Florida polling shows that hardcore 'anti-baby-killing ads' can suppress Obama’s vote by 4 percent if people see them (Obama won the state by 2.8 percentage points in 2008)."
Will the Randall strategy work? It's within the realm of possibility and should Mitt Romney win what is predicted to be a close race, that he would owe his election, in some part, to the efforts of an unapologetic pro-life activist who, by his own admission, is not the greatest Romney-cheerleader might be somewhat ironic.
whatever gets the job done
I like this guy :-)
There is not much there to like.
Brilliant tactic.
Too bad the ad is too offensive and tasteless, for even the most ardent Pro-Lifer. (that would be me!)
There won’t be to politicians in the country that sign up.
Careful opening Pandora’s box! The KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, NAMBLA, and any other currently censored group, will use this tactic without hesitation to spread their own brand of crazy. Then technology will demand a user selected user-group censor option for TV commercials, where people can opt to censor their commercials by categories and biases making it next to impossible for decent political candidates to reach people who select to turn off all political ads, or just the Republican ones.
I send them down the road with a the message that they are hypocrits. They say they are Bible believing Christians, then how can you go against GOD's word in the voting booth and vote in pro abortion and pro homosexual marriage? Don't know what their Bible reads but my KJV reads thou shall NOT KILL and marriage is between an man and a woman. And you shall NOT put any god before ME the Great I AM.
I’d opt out of all commercials if I had that option, I find most offensive and a waste of time. Which is why we TIVO programs we want to watch and fast forward the commercials out.
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