The East Coast was rocked by an earthquake last week and then battered by Hurricane Irene days later. Michele Bachman has a theory on why: It was God’s way of telling the political class to embrace small government.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of politicians,” the GOP presidential hopeful said over the weekend at a campaign event in Florida, the St. Petersburg Times reports. “We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”