Barack Obama seriously considered Hillary Rodham Clinton for the vice presidency, even though his top aides weren't enthusiastic about it, his presidential campaign manager says in a new memoir.

"Neither Ax (top-level adviser David Axelrod) nor I were fans of the Hillary option," David Plouffe, who ran Obama's 2008 race, said in his memoir, portions of which were published by Time magazine Thursday.

"What surprised me was that Obama was clearly thinking more seriously about picking Hillary Clinton than Ax and I had realized," Plouffe wrote, describing a meeting the three had in late spring of last year when it became clear Obama would be the party's standard-bearer.

Plouffe said that by early August, Obama had narrowed his list down to Sen. Joe Biden _ now vice president _ along with Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Plouffe also wrote that "we had initially received a lot of advice from many of her (Clinton) supporters to pick her, though this 'advice' was perhaps more accurately described as subtle pressure."