PROVIDENCE — Former UN ambassador Samantha Power said Friday she would not rule out running for the US Senate seat held by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, should Warren be elected president.
Then again, she also said she wouldn’t rule out the job of Sox general manager, a job that’s actually open right now.
Power, who lives in Concord, came to Providence Friday to promote her new memoir, “The Education of an Idealist.”
When asked whether she would rule out running for the Senate if Warren won the presidency, Power was coy. “No, no. I don’t think it’s a good idea to rule anything out,” she said.
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Power then quipped that she also “wouldn’t rule out managing the Red Sox.”
What prompted this exchange? Speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last weekend, she was pressed by an event moderator on the same question and had a similar response, according to two people in the room.
Those comments had not been previously reported.
In Providence on Friday for an appearance at the New England Independent Booksellers Association’s annual gathering, she acknowledged the Texas conversation.
“What I said is I’m focused on promoting the book, and I’d love to serve again,” Power said. “That is all I said.”
Asked to clarify, she added: “I want to serve again. I’ve got to figure out how.”
Power served in the Obama administration as US ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her book “A Problem from Hell.” She now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and at Harvard Law School, where her husband, Cass Sunstein, also teaches.
Warren, of course, formerly taught at the law school, and her own husband, Bruce Mann, is currently a professor.
Power said these days she is busy promoting her book.
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“I’m really, really focused on what I’m doing now,” she said. “And I have two small kids who I am making up for lost time with.”
A year out from the 2020 election, the Democratic field remains crowded, though Warren has emerged as a formidable candidate.
And the jump from UN ambassador to the US Senate has happened before.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan served briefly in the role before being elected a New York senator in 1976. Earlier this year, Susan Rice, another former UN ambassador in the Obama administration, flirted with a run against Senator Susan Collins next year, a Republican in Maine.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @FitzProv.