Gov. Chris Gregoire repeated her statements about a potential federal appointment Tuesday – essentially that she has work to do in Washington state and isn’t looking for another job.

But she hesitated when asked if she could tell the president no if he called on her to serve as U.S. Solicitor General.

“It’s one thing to say I have a job. But you don’t look the president in the eye when he asks you to serve and say no,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do.”

“The state needs consistent, stable leadership,” Gregoire said during a conversation in her office with the statehouse press corps. She also said that “at this time I feel continuity of leadership is vital.”

But she said she has spoken to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about his decision to leave the U.S. Senate. At first he said no. But when the president called him aside and asked him directly, Salazar said he felt obligated to say yes.

Why not send signals to the White House that she doesn’t want the president to put her in that situation. In other words, please don’t ask?

“That’s what happened with Ken Salazar,” she said.

Gregoire has been rumored to be on a list of potential replacements for Elena Kagan, the current solicitor general who has been nominated for a pending vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. The solicitor general represents the federal government in cases before the Supreme Court and is sometimes referred to as the 10th justice because of her frequency of appearances in the chambers.

If Gregoire were to accept the job, be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and resign prior to Oct. 3 it would trigger a free-for-all general election in which all candidates would face voters together and the one with the most votes would win the final two years of her term. Should the vacancy happen after Oct. 3, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen would serve until the 2012 election.