RAEFORD Tim D'Annunzio is a former paratrooper who made his fortune from bulletproof vests. Now he's braced for the battle he expects once he and other Republicans take over Congress and the White House.

"That's when the war starts," he told a GOP group last week. "What will it consist of? Bringing the government back to constitutional limitations."

He was more pointed on a personal blog called "Christ's War."

The coming battle, he wrote, will be against "The wicked (The Liberal Leftist Socialist Democrats and their beast in the news media)."

"They want to destroy you," he continued. "At what point are you going to realize this is a war to the death. This is a fight that is either the end of US [sic] or the end of them. I say it is the end of them and their evil world."

In the name of "foundational principles," D'Annunzio, 52, would dismantle much of the federal government and turn over programs such as Medicare and Social Security to the states.

D'Annunzio is one of a handful of Republicans running for the 8th District congressional seat held by Democrat Larry Kissell of Montgomery County. The Hoke County businessman has put $553,000 into his campaign. Only four House candidates in the country have reached deeper into their own pockets.

The money helped buy TV ads and billboards across the district that stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville. Less than eight weeks before early voting for the May 4 primary, his own polls show him with a 2-1 edge over his nearest opponent. He hired a former state party chairman as a top consultant and made headlines with his recent "Machine Gun Social" fundraiser at a Fayetteville gun shop.

D'Annunzio himself has jumped into the line of fire.

On his blog, he called President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan and Kissell "liberal leftist God haters." Strongly anti-abortion, he invoked Hitler in attacking the president's support of abortion rights. "Obama," he wrote, "will be responsible for killing many more people before he is finished."

When an Observer blog about the machine gun event elicited online criticism, much of it anonymous, D'Annunzio shot back.

"Just to clear things up," he posted, "not that it will matter to the racist, typical red necked hicks that have now replaced 'N' word with their new bigoted hate ... yes they are real machine guns. Hiding behind these web sites as 'anonymous' is the same as hiding under the white hood, COWARDS."

Business failure to success

D'Annunzio grew up in a blue-collar family outside of Philadelphia. He joined the Army after high school. At Fort Bragg, he became a member of the elite Golden Knights parachute team.

He left as a staff sergeant in 1984 and went to work at the Kennedy Space Center for Martin-Marietta Aerospace, where he helped develop parachute systems for the space shuttle. A decade later he started his own parachute-related sewing company, only to see it fail.

In 1999, he and some partners set up a body armor company that became Paraclete Armor & Equipment. In a small operation, he did everything from fixing sewing machines to cleaning bathrooms. He designed and patented lightweight vests that could stop .44-caliber bullets, armor he describes as "years ahead of anything the military was doing."

He bought out his partners in 2001. Then, after 9-11 and a war in Afghanistan, business surged. Sales hit $16 million in 2005. A year later, he sold the company for $30 million.

In 2007, D'Annunzio opened Paraclete XP SkyVenture outside of Raeford, an indoor wind tunnel used for training by skydivers.

For much of his life, he says, he was mostly apolitical and not particularly religious. That changed on a spring day in 1994 as he sat in his yard under a partial solar eclipse.

At the time, his business and first marriage had collapsed. In 1995, he was charged with criminal trespass and other misdemeanors involving a domestic dispute with his ex-wife.

"When everything is falling apart around you, you have to look at why it's happening," he told the Observer. "The conclusion I had come to was you have to return to your foundation. ... I hope before we collapse as a nation, we return to fundamental principles of the Constitution and understanding of transcendent wisdom."

Constitutional message

Speaking to the Cumberland County Republican Men's Club at a Fayetteville restaurant, the candidate, who calls himself "a conservative first and then a Republican," eschewed small talk and got straight to his point: that America has strayed from the Constitution.

Invoking the Founders and the Federalist Papers, he proposed dismantling programs such as Social Security and Medicare and putting the "50 pieces" under state control. He would abolish agencies such as the Department of Education and the IRS and replace the income tax with a "Fair Tax," or national sales levy.

"He speaks to what I want to hear," said Republican Larry Krieger, 62, a friend who attended the dinner. "The Republican Party of late has basically lost its way."

Club President Jim Messer also was impressed.

"That's a message I'd like to hear," he said, "holding government more accountable to the Constitution."

GOP rivals say they offer voters a more tempered message.

"He has some interesting ideas ... he has some ideas that are 'out there,'" said Republican Hal Jordan of Charlotte.

Lou Huddleston, a Fayetteville Republican, says he would fix broken programs, not dismantle them. Former Charlotte sportscaster Harold Johnson said he's focused on his own campaign.

N.C. State political scientist Andrew Taylor says while some people share D'Annunzio's views, "he's pretty far from the mainstream of the Republican Party."

"Generally these kind of campaigns are pretty quixotic, largely because they don't get a lot of support from the party leadership," Taylor said. "In D'Annunzio's case, you have a person with deep pockets as well."

Likes his odds

Dressed in jeans and a ball cap, D'Annunzio guides a visitor through his three-story wind tunnel. He's relaxed and affable, along the way introducing some of his and his wife Colleen's six children.

Eventually, the subject turns to his blog. "Christ's War" combines politics and religion, with Biblical references, numerology and end-times theology.

He is leery of reporters, whom he has referred to online as "the demon beasts." He warns one against taking his posts out of context.

"What's about to happen," he told the Observer, "is the equivalent of a political crucifixion."

Two days later, he closed the blog to public view.

In a post last December, D'Annunzio explained why he expects to win.

"The Republican Party establishment is against me, the intellectuals are against me, the news media is against me, the local crop farmers are against me, and of course the Democrats are against me even though they act like they want me because they think I will be an easy target of the typical attacks," he wrote.

"I like Our odds. I am here to covert not to be converted."

Jim Morrill: 704-358-5059

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