Napolitano unlikely to be Obama's AG choice

PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano apparently isn't going to be the next U.S. Attorney General.

But it remains to be seen if there's a spot for her anywhere in the Obama administration.

Various media outlets reported Tuesday that the president-elect was shopping the name of Washington attorney Eric Holder to senators to ensure he could get more than enough votes for confirmation to head the U.S. Department of Justice. Napolitano, an early Obama supporter, had been widely mention for the post, given her experience, including having been the U.S. attorney for Arizona in the Clinton administration and state attorney general before she became governor.

Napolitano, traveling Tuesday in northern Arizona, called Holder "a very good guy.''

"I've known him for a long, long time,'' she told Joe Ferguson of the Arizona Daily Sun. "He has wonderful strength for the office.''

But the governor pointed out that Obama himself has not made any official statement about the post. And that is not likely to come until the president-elect chooses a new secretary of state and a new treasury secretary, moves designed to show that foreign policy and the economic crisis are his top priorities.

Napolitano also has repeatedly declined to say what conversations she has had with the president-elect or his staff about any posts in the new administration.

"Until things are formally announced from Chicago, they are not announced,'' she said Tuesday. "I've been rumor-chasing for 10 days now. And so have you all.''

She made similar statements later Tuesday in Cottonwood to Jon Hutchinson of the Verde Independent.

The other position for which Napolitano has been mentioned has been secretary of homeland security. Aside from being a border governor who has had to confront the issue of illegal immigration, she has a good working relationship with the governor of Sonora as well as other contacts in Mexico.

Napolitano came out publicly for Obama in January while Hillary Clinton was still in the hunt for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since his election earlier this month, she has repeatedly refused to take her name out of consideration for a federal appointment even though her departure would elevate Secretary of State Jan Brewer, a Republican, to be governor.

"I don't want to be presumptuous and do that,'' Napolitano said as recently as Friday when asked why she will not say clearly she doesn't want to go to Washington, at least not now.

That has not been the case elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell ruled out serving in the Obama administration because, like Napolitano, it would require him leaving in the middle of his four-year term.

Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said that "given the tumultuous economic times, he is unlikely to hand over the reins to those who have diametrically opposed philosophic views on the role of government.''

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NOTE: Story updated Nov. 19, 2008.