Tim Pawlenty: Conservatives Need To Emulate Elin And Use Their 9-Irons

Looks like someone took those complaints of being “too boring” a little too seriously. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has been presumably prodded by his dismal ratings in 2012 Republican presidential candidate polls to find himself a personality, tried to make a joke in his speech at CPAC earlier today. About Tiger Woods. More specifically, praising his wife Elin Nordegren for smashing the back of his SUV to pieces, and labeling her a role model for conservatives to follow in their approach to big government. Since it’s CPAC, the crowd burst into an uproarious fit of laughter and applause, and, to be fair, the soundbite is hilarious, but probably unintentionally so. Pawlenty told the crowd:

“At this very hour… a big event is happening in the USA: Tiger Woods is holding his press conference at 11 o’clock eastern. I think we can learn a lot from that situation, not from Tiger, but from his wife. So, she said, ‘I’ve had enough.’ She said, ‘no more.’ I think we should take a page out of her playbook and take a 9-iron and smash the window out of big government in this country.”

It will probably take the left about three hours to start spinning this as a promotion of domestic violence and trying to brand Pawlenty as a violently unstable train wreck waiting to happen. If they succeed, it will be his only personality trait, so it’s probably worth a shot. The more likely scenario here, however, is that Pawlenty knows his audience and is becoming increasingly aware of how little he stands out on the national scene. When you’re competing for attention at a conference showcasing Glenn Beck, Dick Cheney, and this guy, off-color is often spot-on. And in the realm of possible ways to incite a rabid crowd to violence, this one ranks fairly low, if only for being about golf.

Watch Pawlenty deliver his barn-burner of a joke below: