Don't bet on Wyden going to the cabinet

Don’t look for Ron Wyden to wind up in Barack Obama’s cabinet.  The senior U.S. Senator from Oregon stayed out of the Democratic presidential nomination fight until it was essentially over – he endorsed Obama on Wednesday morning – two weeks after Obama won the Oregon primary by a substantial plurality.  Wyden’s powerful Chief of Staff, Josh Kardon, ran Hillary Clinton’s Oregon campaign. 

But just in case we’re wrong: if Wyden wound up taking a post in a new Democratic administration (he’s not really in line to chair a full Senate committee anytime soon, and it wouldn’t be crazy to think he’d take a job running the Energy or HHS departments), there would be an early 2009 special election to fill his Senate seat.