People Have a Right to Know About the Pants!

Here’s how Jens Krogstad* starts his profile of Tim Pawlenty in the Des Moines Register.

Then-House Speaker Steve Sviggum stood at the plate during Minnesota’s annual House-Senate softball game a decade ago when Tim Pawlenty, then a suburban legislator, sneaked up and yanked down his pants.

“There’s press all around, all these senators are all around, and I’m standing there with my softball pants around my knees,” said Sviggum, a close friend of Pawlenty. “Luckily I was wearing some shorts.”

Pawlenty’s good-natured, everyman demeanor during two terms as Minnesota’s governor helped him win the support of independents, despite strong — and at times radical — conservative fiscal policies, said Larry Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist.

Here’s how the piece begins in the partial copy e-mailed to reporters by the campaign.

Candidate profile: ‘You can be both nice and strong,’ says Tim Pawlenty
By Jens Krogstad, Des Moines Register, August 4, 2011 

… Pawlenty’s good-natured, everyman demeanor during two terms as Minnesota’s governor helped him win the support of independents, despite strong — and at times radical — conservative fiscal policies, said Larry Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist.

No pants? Tim Pawlenty’s crusade against color ledes may cost him the caucus support of literally several people.

*That’s a great Iowa name.