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From Sunday Edition of the St. Augustine paper...SENATOR JIM KING'S 2006 CHALLENGER?

"Hardliner to softy?"

Randall Terry has gone from Operation Rescue to a possible state Senate run, but who is the man behind the conservative front?

By RICHARD PRIOR, Staff Writer

Randall Terry could have used better PR. If he had gotten it, the anti-abortion activist says, the public's perception of him may not have been locked in on a one-dimensional image for the past 17 years.

That image tends toward an updated version of John Brown, whose portrait in the Topeka, Kan., statehouse shows a wild-eyed man spurring on the whirlwind, his arms stretched wide, his flowing beard blown to the side, a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other.

Terry says he's not that high-strung. And, he insists, there's more to him than has met the public eye.

He likes "Monty Python," Dave Chappelle and the occasional risque story. He's addicted to "Saturday Night Live." Terry, 46, plays classical, jazz and boogie-woogie tunes on the 1896 Steinway D piano in the entrance to his Ponte Vedra Beach home. He has named the piano Elizabeth II.

"The piano is the queen of the instruments, and music is the queen of the sciences," Terry explains. His fingers flying across all 88 keys, Terry probably could have held his own in a "Dueling Pianos" exchange with Jerry Lee Lewis. As a child, he thought he would become a rock 'n' roll musician.

His training, which began at 8 years old, was in classical and jazz. He enjoys playing church music, but several tunes featured at an impromptu recital would also be appropriate in a smoky saloon. Producers in Nashville are seriously considering three compositions.

He has written eight books, six of which have been published. The Rochester, N.Y., native is a full-time student, working on a bachelor's degree on Middle Eastern Studies through the State University of New York. He expects to receive his degree next spring.

He works hard at keeping an edge on his racquetball skills. And he's no stranger to practical jokes. The scene for one of Terry's riskier belly-slappers was set recently, just after he announced a possible run against District 8 Sen. Jim King of Jacksonville in the 2006 primary. King had turned his back on conservative principles and "betrayed Terri Schiavo," Terry said at his announcements in Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Daytona Beach.

King and eight other Republicans had helped block a bill in the Legislature aimed at keeping Schiavo alive. Local "Republican royalty" were invited to the Terry home after the announcement to hear his stand on the issues and, not incidentally, leave some campaign contributions behind.

Terry chose that occasion to put a fake cockroach under one of his guests' dinner napkins. Before she wrote the check.

A big smile crosses Terry's face as he considers the shock and waves of laughter that accompanied his audacious stunt. "A lot of those people who came to the house probably arrived expecting to hate me," he says. "They left writing checks.

"I love to joke. That's just who I am. I intend to bring humor to the campaign."

It hasn't always been that way. Activities and speeches by the founder of Operation Rescue more commonly led to anger, scorn and a lot of arrests. From about 1987 to 1994, more than 70,000 Operation Rescue followers were arrested for their protests. Terry can only say he was arrested more than 40 times.

He had to agree in 1998 to a permanent injunction against future action against abortion clinics following an out-of-court settlement with the National Organization for Women (NOW).

As a result of the judgment, he lost the equity in his 7,000-square-foot home and declared he was close to $2 million in debt when he filed for bankruptcy that year.

"It was a bitter pill," he says. "If I had it to do all over again, I would do the exact same thing. But it's still a painful loss."

For several years after the judgment, Terry's annual income was under $10,000. He scrambled to make money by showing up at every speaking engagement he could, driving cross-country at a time he had to collect change to put gas in the car.

He got paid to ghostwrite letters for people. He opened a used car lot just before 9/11 - when the bottom went out of the used-car market. "It was a living nightmare," Terry recalls.

The "kindness of the Christian community" bailed him out. "That's why we're in this house," he says. "(Former U.S. Ambassador) Alan Keyes sent out a letter to thousands and thousands of pro-lifers that said, in essence, 'We cannot let one of our heroes be destroyed by the pro-abortion movement. We must restore what the enemy took.' "

Terry is seated in the library of his home, surrounded by some of the 4,000 volumes he has collected. At one end of the room are three guitars. There is also a dulcimer, which his wife, Andrea, gave him. On the shelves, in front of the books, are collector's items from his trips to nearly all the continents.

On either side of the door is a set of bagpipes and a replica of William Wallace's sword. Above an antique bureau with sink is a painting he commissioned. It is of a medieval soldier in full armor "who has recovered from his wounds in a convent and is heading back to battle," Terry says.

"I have told my wife on more than one occasion I was born out of time," Terry says. "I would have liked to have been a great general at some of the key battles that determined the fate of nations."

On the shelves is a photograph of Terry with Pope John Paul II. There also are pictures of two of his heroes, Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt.

"Winston Churchill is my ultimate hero," says Terry. "He was the towering figure of the 20th century. TR would have been a towering figure, but he had no great issue.

"Churchill, in my mind, is followed by John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. Mother Teresa was another towering figure. They all possessed an incredible prophetic insight into the nature of man and the movements of nations."

Even while playing the perfect host, Terry stresses that he's not a big fan of print journalists. In fact, the two who visited him recently were the first ones allowed into his library.

"I've never been burned on radio or TV," he says. "But I've always been burned in print."

One reason, he says, is most reporters don't check their "core values" at the door when they cover someone they don't agree with.

Several prominent quotes, he says, were taken out of context and have "haunted" him since they were first reported."Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good," Terry was quoted in The News Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Ind., following a 1993 speech.

"What happened was, I was too intense," he says. "When I speak publicly, and I get too intense ... I'll step back. Do something for comic relief.

"'Let the hate wash over you. ... Hate is good.' If you were there, you could hear people laughing. It's obviously a joke.

"What I was saying, though, was, 'If you don't hate child pornography and child molestation, something is wrong with you.' "It was taken completely out of context. I hate retail politicking. I wear well in person. If you take my quotes out of context ... I look like a lunatic." Every now and then, Terry concedes, he managed to load reporters' cannons for them.

"When you're in your 20s, you say stuff you wouldn't say in your 40s," he says. "You say stuff for shock value. You say stuff that you're trying to outdo what your buddy just said.

"We had jokes among us who could say the most wild things. One of my friends said, 'You make promises we have to cash with our bodies.' "

Other than study for his bachelor's degree, Terry fills his time by writing and lecturing. He hopes to start broadcasting his radio program by the end of summer from the studio attached to his library.

Terry still hasn't said he is definitely running against Jim King. But, if he does, "I'm praying to God we can have more than a bumper sticker campaign. Content really matters to me. And I believe content really matters to the average person."

Such a campaign would give Terry a chance to talk about the issues he says are important to him: foreign policy, taxes, education.

"I'm a Reagan Republican," he says. "I believe wholeheartedly in vouchers. We need to shift our revenue base away from property tax to user fees and sales tax."

He is pleased with the reception he's gotten so far from "Republican royalty," Terry says. Some of that reaction, he says, comes from people getting go know him up close and personal.

And some of it, he says, has come from him being a more likable person. "Yeah," he says after a thoughtful pause. "I have softened over time. Age does that to you. You make a few mistakes, and you think, 'Hmmm. Maybe I'm not quite as smart as I thought I was.'

"I've become more merciful than I was. The more I have embraced the moral absolutes of Heaven, the more it has freed me to be more merciful to myself and others."