Pawlenty book before the Pawlenty book (with updates on the mystery author)

Please read all the way to the bottom for the updates on the mysterious author of the book.

Well, that was quick.

"New Hampshire-based political analyst J. A. McClure" is offering a 100-page book about Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Amazon.com. The booklet, portions of which are available for free on Amazon, on the "The Sam's Club Republican" appears to be largely an able, but non-newsy, clip job about the governor. (Meanwhile, Pawlenty seems to have mostly dropped the "Sam's Club" references from his stump speeches.)

Pawlenty will come out with his own biobook next year.

Update:

A google search for McClure draws a blank and his name doesn't seem to pop up in the New Hampshire political analyst world.

"I've never heard of him and it is a very small state," said New Hampshire political analyst and journalist James Pindell, who is eminently google-able.

The phone number listed on the press release about the book is to an Applebee's in Portsmouth, N.H. The woman who answered the phone there, Carol, said that she's received four calls about the book today and has never heard of Pawlenty.

New Hampshire political experts Dante Scala, chair of the political science department at the University of New Hampshire, and longtime Republican strategist and lawyer Tom Rath, also both said they have never heard of a J.A. McClure in New Hampshire.

Update III from Star Tribune's Kevin Diaz:

Hot Dish contacted several sources in Pawlenty's camp and none of them had heard of the book or the author.

Update IV: