WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- Tom Daschle, former U.S. senator from South Dakota, says he will make a decision whether to run for the Democratic nomination for president within six months.
"No, I'm not interested in vice president or the cabinet," Daschle wrote the Rapid City Journal by e-mail Sunday evening.
Daschle is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington.
Political-science professors Jon Schaff of Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., and Bob Burns of South Dakota State University in Brookings agreed Monday that though Daschle says he isn't interested in the job of vice president, he probably would take it.
"Any serious candidate for the presidency has to say he's not interested in VP. He's interested in the top job, not playing second fiddle," Schaff said.
Burns said Daschle also might look seriously at the right cabinet position if a Democrat were elected president in 2008.
"Something like secretary of defense or state would be hard to turn down," Burns said.
