Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says publicly that trips this week to New Hampshire and Iowa are simply part of his duties as as incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association. But any visit to the nation’s presidential battlegrounds is going to generate a lot of buzz.

Thursday night, Barbour will be the featured guest at what Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn is calling “the Party’s premier event of the year.” The night before, he will help raise money for the Republican Party of New Hampshire.

The visits have whipped political observers into a frenzy of speculation on whether the governor, who will be term limited in 2011, has aspirations for a higher office.

David Hampton, editorial director for the The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion Ledger, says Barbour will certainly have a place in the 2012 campaign.

Is Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour running for president in 2012?

That question gets chuckles and eye-rolls from some, mostly the governor himself. But after all of his sidestepping statements, a list of reasons why not and funny self-deprecating jokes to change the subject, the question remains.

It’s a valid one. …

… Slow-talking, pudgy Haley Barbour from Mississippi on the presidential ticket? Stranger things have happened in presidential politics.

When asked by a Washington Post reporter about his 2012 plans at a fundraiser in Virginia, Barbour once again parried.

He nodded his head when he was asked by a reporter at a press conference today, but then said: “Any Republican who’s really trying to focus on how to help his party and help our country needs to focus on the elections of 2009, including Virginia and New Jersey, and the elections of 2010. After that we can start worrying about 2012.”

Of course, he didn’t mention his trips this month to Iowa and New Hampshire, early states on the nominating calendar, but he didn’t need to.

Barbour is a former lobbyist who made millions representing tobacco and other business interests. As chair of the Republican National Committee, he helped his party take over the House and Senate in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. His rising profile nationally has him on the early short list of potential GOP challengers to President Barack Obama in 2012, and coming to the Hawkeye State cements that position.

Strawn told CNN he wanted Barbour to come to Iowa because he defeated an incumbent Democrat for governor in 2003, something local Republicans hope to emulate next year.

Barbour, along with 16 Republican legislators, will be featured at the RPI’s “Night of the Rising Stars” event Thursday at 7 p.m. in Hoyt Sherman Place, 1501 Woodland Ave., Des Moines. Tickets are $50 for those 35 and younger, $100 for everyone else and $1,000 for “sponsors,” and can be attained by calling the Republican Party of Iowa at 515-263-8238.