Newt Tells Supporters A Story About Tree That Had Too Much Height

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Newt Gingrich spoke Tuesday night at West Georgia College, where he worked as an assistant professor in the 1970s before he was elected to Congress. Before launching into his typical stump speech, he went on a peculiar tangent.

Gingrich, who has been largely absent from the Michigan and Arizona contests going on tonight, thanked supporters at his old stomping ground, including many people who have been with him since the start of his political career.

He also told an anecdote about taking on tough challenges — involving an accident that happened when he and a friend tried to cut down a tree in the man’s yard, without paying for a tree surgeon. After the tree fell into the house, damaging the roof and ceilings, he said, they ultimately had to pay a tree surgeon anyway — plus extensive repairs on the house.

But in the end, he said, the humbling experience gained him friends, and has won him new friends because he’s able to admit his own flaws.

He then launched into his standard stump speech: Hitting on energy development, radical Islam, the radical leftism of President Barack Obama (as Newt sees it), and his opposition to Mitt Romney and a call for grassroots might against Romney’s financial resources.

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