Condi Rice for VP talk persists despite denials

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says repeatedly she does not "do politics" but her name keeps popping up as a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.

Rice's spokesman tried yet again on Monday to quash reports that Rice wants the No. 2 spot on the Republican ticket but blogs and political Web sites are still buzzing.

"I don't know how many ways she can say no," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack of reports that Rice is actively campaigning to join the Arizona senator's ticket.

"She has got to finish up her work as secretary of state and then head back out West ... to go to Stanford. Remember, she is still a tenured professor at Stanford and only on leave from Stanford. She fully intends to go back," he added.

On Sunday, Dan Senor, a Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority that governed Iraq after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, said Rice was courting conservatives for the job.

"Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this," Senor told ABC's "This Week" program.

Rice fueled speculation when she attended a meeting at the end of March with conservatives from an anti-tax lobbying group run by conservative activist Grover Norquist.

Rice's staff forcefully rejected the idea that she attended the Americans for Tax Reform meeting as a way to advertise her interest in the vice presidential job, saying she went to discuss foreign policy.