Mark Warner’s name has been mentioned as a possible choice to replace Rahm Emanuel if President Obama’s chief of staff as expected leaves the White House to run for the open mayor’s job in Chicago.
Warner’s answer to the question when I posed it to him today: an emphatic “no.”
“Nobody was more surprised to see that than me,” Warner said of the speculation that surfaced this morning on blogs and on Twitter as politicos on the left began their rundown of the possible contenders to succeed Emanual in the key White House post.
Mark Warner’s name has been mentioned as a possible choice to replace Rahm Emanuel if President Obama’s chief of staff as expected leaves the White House to run for the open mayor’s job in Chicago.
Warner’s answer to the question when I posed it to him today: an emphatic “no.”
“Nobody was more surprised to see that than me,” Warner said of the speculation that surfaced this morning on blogs and on Twitter as politicos on the left began their rundown of the possible contenders to succeed Emanual in the key White House post.
“I got hired by the folks of Virginia. I work for them. I’m staying on trying to add whatever value I can from this position,” said Warner, a freshman senator elected in 2008, former Virginia governor and a successful telecom businessman in a past life.
It’s those chops as a Democrat with a solid executive and business background that has the wags putting Warner on the short list for the chief of staff job, though Warner, a one-time White House hopeful who is still wildly popular in Virginia and is seen as presidential material down the road, doesn’t necessarily see the connection himself.
“I’m like, Wait a minute. Where is this coming from?” Warner said of the blog speculation.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at [email protected].
Share
Chris Graham
