Vilsack learns about his past

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Vilsack learns about his past, grapples with whether to learn more

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Tom Vilsack, the first candidate of either party to announce he is running for president in 2008, is now grappling with another decision -- whether to learn more about the circumstances of his birth.

The outgoing Iowa Democratic governor, who launched a presidential run three weeks ago, told Iowa's Quad City Times that he received a letter last weekend from an orphanage administrator in western Pennsylvania who said Vilsack was born there and that he has certain non-identifying information about the politician's birth mother, the newspaper reported Thursday.

"I'm 56 years old, I didn't know where I was born until Sunday," he told the newspaper's editorial board.

Vilsack, orphaned at birth in Pittsburgh and adopted in 1951, told the board that the orphanage administrator said he had learned of Vilsack from a newspaper article.

Asked if he would search for more answers about his past, Vilsack told the Times he was still weighing what to do. "This is not something where you make a snap decision," he said.

-- CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney