Roll tide.

Gov. Pawlenty was in Montgomery, Alabama tonight talking to roughly 700 Republican Activists at the Alabama Republican Party's Red, White and Blue dinner.

The speech was standard fare (Government is spending too much. President Obama isn't tough enough on national defense. It even included Pawlenty's standard Michael Jordan speech at the end...):

This is the nineteenth different state Pawlenty has visited since he announed in June that he wasn't running for a third term as governor. He also made the trip one day after the 2010 legislation session began. DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez said Pawlenty is "checked out" as governor:

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"Tim Pawlenty should spend his full time being governor of Minnesota and if he needs to leave the state occassionally, that's one thing but leaving every week and on the second day of session means he's really checked out as being governor. If he's not going to do the job then he should resign and let Carol Molnau take over."

Pawlenty will also visit North Carolina on Monday and has trips planned for Missouri, Washington D.C. and Nevada later this month.

(Thanks to Alabama Public Radio's Daniel Cherry for the audio...)