LaHood not included in White House list of Cabinet holdovers

{mosads}”You know what the president’s busy doing right now … trying to save the country,” LaHood said when he was pressed for more information about his future plans.

LaHood’s comments were a sharp change from October 2011, when the former Republican House member said that he was retiring at the end of Obama’s first term.

“I’m not running for public office anymore,” he told the Chicago Tribune then.

In September 2012, two months before Obama was reelected, LaHood sounded a different note, telling reporters how much he loved his job.

“As somebody who’s been in public service 35 years, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better job,” LaHood said in September 2012. “This is a great job. I’ll always be grateful to the president for giving me this opportunity, and I owe to him to sit down and talk after the election and see where it takes us.”

LaHood was an Illinois congressman for 14 years before he was appointed by Obama in 2009.