Rice won't be in the race for chief, Laura Bush says

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won't change her mind and run as a Republican candidate for president in 2008, first lady Laura Bush said.

"She'd make an excellent president, but I don't think we can talk her into running," Bush said in an interview Friday with CNN talk-show host Larry King in Washington, D.C.

The first lady on several occasions has said she would like to see Rice, who served as national security adviser in President Bush's first term, become the country's first female president. Rice, a former Stanford University provost who has never run for elective office, has said publicly she doesn't want to be president.