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CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) – Top Obama advisor David Axelrod says he has not recently spoken to scandal-plagued Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Asked by PBS's Gwen Ifill when the last time Axelrod spoke with the governor, he replied, "Thankfully, a long time ago." Axelrod's firm once advised the Illinois governor.

Axelrod and Ifill were participating in the Harvard Institute of Politics forum of 2008 campaign leaders.

Axelrod was also asked about the revelation that Blagojevich may have wanted to trade personal and political favors in exchange for the appointment of Obama advisor Vallerie Jarrett to fill Obama's vacant senate seat.

Axelrod said that Obama never wanted Jarrett to fill that seat. Axelrod said, "His (Obama's) preference was always that she serve in the White House. He eventually expressed that to her and said, 'I need you.'"

Obama named Jarrett a senior White House advisor on November 14.

Earlier this week, Axelrod released a statement that he had been "mistaken" when he told an interviewer last month that Blagojevich and Obama had discussed the Senate vacancy. "They did not then or at any time discuss the subject," he said.

Valerie Jarrett is one of Barack Obama's closest advisers.

(CNN) - Two Democratic sources close to President-elect Barack Obama tell CNN that top adviser Valerie Jarrett will not be appointed to replace him in the U.S. Senate.

"While he (Obama) thinks she would be a good senator, he wants her in the White House," one top Obama advisor told CNN Monday.

Over the weekend, Democratic sources had told CNN as well as Chicago television station WLS-TV that Jarrett was Obama's choice to fill his Senate seat.

Jarrett, a Chicago attorney and one of Obama’s closest advisers, is a leader of the president-elect’s transition team.

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From left to right: Will Croswell, of the Washington D.C. area; Andrew Butash, of Scranton, Pennsylvania; Byron Hodkinson, from Melbourne, Austrailia; and Charlie Smith, also from the Washington D.C. area, greeted Sen. Obama in Virginia Friday. (Photo Credit: Sasha Johnson/CNN)

ROANOKE, Virginia (CNN) - The new symbol of the McCain campaign: the plunger.

As Democratic nominee Barack Obama pulled into the Roanoke Civic Center on Friday, he was greeted by the usual McCain campaign supporters that show at Obama rallies. But this time, those waving McCain-Palin signs were joined by dozens of people waving standard-issue plungers. Some wore white t-shirts emblazoned with "I AM JOE THE PLUMBER" on the front. The protesters all said they were volunteers and not paid by the McCain campaign.

The plungers serve as a reference to the 2008 campaign's latest cult personality, Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher of Holland Ohio. (Joe is actually his middle name. First name: Samuel).

While the plungers emerged in Roanoke, McCain's vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin told a fundraiser in neighboring North Carolina Thursday night that she's already tired of "Joe the Plumber."

"Don't make me say Joe the Plumber, please, in any speeches," Palin said.