Com­ment: In FTR #702, we touched on the Tiger Woods imbroglio and spec­u­la­tion that psy­cho­log­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion between Woods and Obama–what research psy­chol­o­gists call “stim­u­lus generalization”–may have under­lain that case.

Recently, Gov­er­nor Tim Pawlenty–viewed as a pos­si­ble 2012 GOP pres­i­den­tial candidate–directly ref­er­enced that association.

“CPAC 2010 Updates:Latest News, Video from Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence”; Sam Stein, Ryan Grim, Michael Fal­cone and Arthur Delaney; Huff­in­g­ton Post; 2/18/2010.

” . . . On Fri­day Paw­lenty also offered this advice to his fel­low Repub­li­cans: ‘I think we should take a page out of her play­book and take a nine iron and smash a win­dow out of big gov­ern­ment in this coun­try,’ said Paw­lenty, refer­ring to Tiger Woods’s wife. . . .”

Inci­den­tally, the con­fer­ence was spon­sored by the John Birch Soci­ety.

“Return of the Fright Wing” by John Avlon; The Daily Beast; 2/16/2010.

” . . . It’s CPAC time again—the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Committee’s annual Wash­ing­ton cat­tle call. This year, they’ve attracted an all-star lineup in a bid for renewed respectabil­ity: a half-dozen GOP pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls (Mitt Rom­ney, Tim Paw­lenty, Rick San­to­rum, Newt Gin­grich, etc.), con­ser­v­a­tive con­gres­sional dar­lings, a keynote address by Glenn Beck. And co-sponsorship by the John Birch Society. . . .”