Report: Obama leaning toward McDonough for next chief of staff

President Obama is leaning toward choosing Denis McDonough, currently a deputy national security adviser, as his next chief of staff, sources told Bloomberg.

McDonough, who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign, is considered deeply loyal to the president. He was a longtime congressional aide who worked for Obama when he was a freshman senator. McDonough also served as foreign policy adviser to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) and legislative director to then-Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who is now the secretary of the Interior.

He also worked as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and joined the National Security Council in 2009.

{mosads}Another leading candidate is Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama is looking for a successor to current White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, the president’s pick to be the next Treasury secretary.

McDonough graduated from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., where he played football, and has a master’s degree in foreign affairs from Georgetown University. The 6-foot-3 McDonough often plays basketball with the president and, Bloomberg notes, he usually rode his bike from his home in Tacoma Park, Md., to work until a recent accident.

He would be Obama’s fifth chief of staff.