SEQUIM — State Attorney General Rob McKenna said Monday he would consider running for governor in November if Gov. Chris Gregoire steps down to take a job as solicitor general with the Obama administration.

“Sure, I would consider it,” McKenna said in a Peninsula Daily News interview.

“I don’t think she would leave office soon enough to trigger a special election,” he added.

“I think we will still be — the way our Constitution is — still be looking at a 2012 election. With that time frame, it will probably not be this year.”

According to an anonymously sourced May 12 article in www.nationaljournal.com, the White House told top aides to members of Washington’s congressional delegation that Gregoire leads the “short list” of candidates to succeed current Solicitor General Elena Kagan, whom Obama nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court and may be confirmed by the Senate later this summer.

Gregoire’s office said late Tuesday that the White House had not contacted Gregoire about the solicitor general position.

The solicitor general represents the United States government in cases before the Supreme Court.

Gregoire is a three-term Washington state attorney general whose term as governor ends in 2012.

She addressed the issue of her potential departure from state office to national office on Tuesday.

“If the president of the United States looks at you and says, ‘the country needs you to serve, I’m asking,’ I don’t know what I’d do,” Gregoire told The Seattle Times.

She would have to resign by Monday for candidates for her position to follow the Aug. 17 primary-Nov. 2 general election cycle to fill that position, David Ammons, spokesman for the state Secretary of State’s Office, said Tuesday.

If she resigned between Monday and Oct. 3, an all-comers general election would be held Nov. 2 under which the candidate who received the most votes would win, Ammons said.

The lieutenant governor — in this case, Brad Owen — would immediately become governor upon her resignation and then himself resign after a new governor is elected.

If Gregoire vacated office after Oct. 3, Owen would be governor until a new governor is elected in 2012, Ammons said.

“She is an Obama favorite,” Ammons added. “She has long been on the radar screen for a variety of openings whenever they occur.”

________

Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.