We reported earlier this month that Newt Gingrich’s 527 group had accidentally told porn exec Allison Vivas that she’d been awarded an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award and invited her to an “intimate event” with Gingrich. The group soon backtracked and said the whole thing was a mistake.
Well, they may have made a similar mistake again. The Dallas Morning News reports that the owner of a topless club in Texas was given the same award — and then stripped of it.
Dawn Rizos, owner of The Lodge, which the Morning News calls “one of the best-known gentlemen’s clubs in Dallas,” was named an “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Gingrich’s conservative group. And then Gingrich rescinded the invitation to a private D.C. dinner — along with Rizos’ $5,000 donation to Gingrich’s group, American Solutions for Winning the Future.
The group’s spokesman, Dan Kotman, was not immediately available for comment.
Rizos, on the other hand, was happy to talk to us. She said she’d already bought her plane tickets and booked a hotel room when Gingrich’s group contacted the club yesterday to say the whole thing was a horrible mistake.
“I guess they finally googled me,” she said, adding that she’d been looking forward to having her photo taken with Gingrich.
I’m disappointed. I’m really heartbroken that we won’t have that picture in the club.
Rizos said the club has won a number of awards in the past, and that it’s actually “conservative” by the standards of many topless clubs — and serves a wide variety of respectable clients.
“It’s not something that he would be embarrassed to be associated with,” she said, adding that Gingrich “fits the perfect profile of one of our customers.”
Rizos sent me an e-mail a few minutes after our phone conversation with this message for Gingrich:
No hard feelings, please drop by and see us anytime. We have lots to talk about.
