Pawlenty checks more states off his travel list

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is on course to tick all but one of the Gulf Coast states off his travel list between this Friday and next April.

Pawlenty traveled to the seaside Florida city of Naples for a speech Friday. Next week he'll be in Austin, Texas for the Republican Governors Association's annual meeting.

Pawlenty's travel calendar is already filling up for 2010. In February, he's due in Montgomery for the Alabama GOP's Red, White and Blue Dinner. And in April he's slated to appear at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.

That would leave only Mississippi among the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

Pawlenty is seen as a potential 2012 presidential candidate.