Mixing classic rightwing economics and Christianist populism, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a rapt crowd in a Minneapolis hotel Tuesday night that “government is taking from the overly happy and redistributing to the insufficiently happy.”Gingrich was addressing the Minnesota Family Council’s Annual Dinner at the downtown Minneapolis Hilton Hotel, where he shared top billing with a prerecorded speech by Rep. Michelle Bachmann. At a book signing at the same hotel earlier that evening, Gingrich was “glittered” by pro-gay prankster Nick Espinosa.
“The
doesn’t give you the right to happiness,” only the “pursuit of happiness,” Gingrich said, touting his role in pushing through welfare reform legislation in the Clinton administration.
Despite Gingrich’s well-known presidential ambitions, Tuesday night’s speakers focused their rhetoric almost entirely on the Family Council’s looming campaign to pass a constitutional amendment in Minnesota banning same-sex marriage. (After a close vote this morning, the measure is headed for a vote on the House floor before the session ends on Monday.)
Gingrich also mocked accusations of racism leveled against him on Sunday’s episode of “Meet the Press,” for his description of President Barack Obama as a “food stamp President” in a speech last week. Other speakers returned to the theme later in the evening, with the pastor leading the closing prayer going so far as to tell the crowd “we are not bigots” and give thanks for the ability of an African American to be elected to the White House.
Full story: Washington Independent
Gee, I wonder if the "insufficiently happy" in Newt G's words include:
- Oil companies
- Paris Hilton, other trust fund kids
- Millionaires and billionaires and xillionaires
- Zombie banks
Or...
- Illegal aliens
- Single mothers
- Lazy obese people
- ACORN
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