Pawlenty teams up with Hulk Hogan biographer for upcoming book

What do Hulk Hogan and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty have in common, other than having worked in the same professions as Jesse "The Body" Ventura?

A writing partner.

Author Mark Dagostino, who ghost-wrote Hogan's autobiography, My Life Outside the Ring, assisted Pawlenty with his forthcoming memoir.

Pawlenty told The Associated Press that Dagostino helped write his book, Courage to Stand: An American Story, which is due out in January. Pawlenty will be leaving the Minnesota governor's mansion around the same time and is thought to be considering a 2012 presidential bid.

The governor didn't want to give Dagostino all the credit. The two-term Republican called him a collaborator, not a ghost-writer. In addition to "many, many hours" of interviews, Pawlenty said they both wrote sections of the book and edited each other's work.

Courage to Stand tells the story, "for the first time," of how Pawlenty "found the resolve to get the job done, taking readers all the way back to the lessons he learned as a boy in the gritty meatpacking town of South St. Paul."

The narrative, according to its Amazon.com product description, ranges from the "devastating early death of his mother to the struggle to work his way through college and law school and his epic political battles as governor."