Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack spoke wryly about the approaching end of his eight-year run in the Obama cabinet during a session with organic producers — “there’ll be an opening in about six months” — and said he expects to return to Iowa. “We’ve had a house in Des Moines for a while and we have three grandchildren, so it’s not rocket science to figure out we’re going back to Des Moines,” he told reporters afterward.
“I don’t know what we are going to do or when we are going to go back, but that’s home,” Vilsack said. He spent most of his adult life in Iowa, serving in city government and the Legislature before twice being elected governor. The last original member of the Obama cabinet, Vilsack is the longest-serving agriculture secretary in half a century.
The Des Moines Register said there was no indication that Vilsack plans to leave USDA early, “either to take another job or to campaign for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he has endorsed for president.” Some political handicappers have included Vilsack on their lists of potential vice presidential nominees.