Pat Waak said Wednesday that she'll announce after the Christmas holiday whether she'll seek a third term as Colorado Democratic Party chair next spring.

"I just haven't made up my mind," Waak told PolitickerCO.com. "It's something that I'm having a lot of discussions with among the different elected officials, and I'm being very thoughtful about this."

If she leaves, she said she would focus on a possible Obama administration appointment, writing, and farming.

"I just want to think about what more I particularly might have to offer the party, and whether there are more things that I could be doing -- which I'm sure there are -- and whether that's really what I want to do," she said. 

With both houses of the state legislature, the governor's mansion, most statewide offices, both U.S. senators, five of seven U.S. House seats and Colorado's seven presidential electoral votes controlled by the Democrats, Waak said she feels she's accomplished what she set out to do.

"But what else is there to do?" Waak asked. "I guess we have very important races coming up in two years, with the governor's race and the legislature and redistricting coming up."

Party elections will be held next March, she said.

Waak said some other people have indicated an interest in succeeding her if she doesn't run again for party chair, but she said those people told her they wouldn't oppose her if she did seek another term.

"It's not a question of opposition or anything. It's really a question of whether it's best for me and it's best for the party," Waak said.

Waak declined to say who was interested in assuming party chair if she left.

If Waak steps down as party chair, she said she might consider getting a position in the new Obama administration.  

"I have a lot of foreign policy background, so that's possible," she said.

Waak was a member of the U.S. delegation to the 1994 U.N. International Conference on Population and Development, was the lead information distributor for the United States at the 1999 ICPD plus Five Conference, and served as assistant director for the Center for Population and Family Health at Columbia University. She's also the former chair of the population and environment technical committee for the Commission on Environmental Strategies and Planning of the World Conservation Union-IUCN.

Waak, a published author, would also have more time to devote to writing, she said.

During the past four years she said she's "been saving everything."

"So there's a lot to, you know, get time to sit back and put all that background into the book," she said.

Also, stepping down as chair would allow her to spend more time tending to her farm outside Erie.

"I wanted to have, actually, some goats and chickens for awhile," she said. "And my husband said not until I stay home."