Donilon in the Oval Office last year

Last fall, President Obama tapped Rhode Island native and La Salle grad Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser.

But according to New York magazine, administration officials considered giving Donilon an even more powerful gig – White House chief of staff – during the search for Rahm Emanuel’s replacement. Here’s the relevant excerpt (emphasis mine):

Yet for all this, [Bill] Daley was not the first person considered to replace Emanuel. The outgoing chief of staff himself initially pushed hard for Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief, to succeed him, but the idea faced internal opposition. Tom Donilon, then deputy national-security adviser, was in the mix, until Obama decided to name him Jim Jones’s heir. Daschle, Panetta, and Podesta were all floated, but Obama preferred to confer the interim title on Rouse—telling him that, in the end, he might ask Rouse to accept an upgrade.

As the story notes, the job eventually went to Bill Daley, a J.P. Morgan executive and longtime Democratic Party powerbroker.

(photo: Pete Souza/The White House, via Wikipedia)