Nondescript Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is pretty much 100% going to run for president in 2012. What's his strategy to make anyone care? Apparently it's to strut around his "red-hot smoking wife" before the salivating crowds.

Pawlenty recently made his fifth trip of the year to Iowa, site of the caucuses that will kick off the 2012 nomination process. A liberal New York Times reporter traveled along this time, to catch him making sexy Heartland crowd-pleasers:

"I'm very thankful for my red-hot smoking wife, the first lady of Minnesota," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, pointing to his wife, Mary, who was standing a few feet away.

As the audience roared, she said with a smile: "Who, when they're turning 50, doesn't like to be called a red-hot smoking wife?"

Hooray! (She'll get sick of this routine soon enough.)

[via Wonkette, image via AP]