Harvey Weinstein wants to party with Michele Bachmann‎

Studio head honcho Harvey Weinstein played politics at the Gala premiere of Butter at TIFF Tuesday night, getting the film's co-star Olivia Wilde, hilarious in the role of a blackmailing stripper-turned-butter carver, to read a letter to the crowd at Roy Thomson hall before the lights dimmed for the movie.

He started with some shoutouts to cast and crew, including Canada's Jason Reitman, who was "an inspiration and guiding light for this film. I love his movies and I love his dad's movies. Jason is a great cinema lover and one of the smartest people I've met in this industry."

Then he got to the meat of the matter:

"In 20 years of coming to the Toronto Film Festival, I've never released a statement for a film. But I would like to take this moment to formally invite Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota and Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, to co-host with me the big premiere of Butter in Iowa in a few months from now. I know Michele will already be in Iowa for the caucus, so we can save some money on airfare and travel. I would of course be more than happy to fly in the other leading members of the Tea Party movement to make an entire day of it. We could take some math classes in the morning to help balance the budget, brush up on the Constitution in the afternoon, play some ping-pong and then maybe some verbal ping-pong on gay rights and women's rights (especially the right to choose). But at night we can all go hand-in-hand to the premiere of Butter, a fun and important film where we'll share some popcorn and laughs. These are the kind of bipartisan efforts that makes America great.

I look forward to hearing from Michele and I'm particularly looking forward to those classes on the Constitution.

All my best,

Harvey

Harvey Weinstein arrives at the InStyle and The Hollywood Foreign Press party at the Windsor Arms Hotel on September 13, 2011. (Jason Merritt/Getty Images)