Michael Reagan a No-Go to Challenge Feinstein in California

FILE: In this Oct. 29, 2010, photo, Michael Reagan, son of the late U.S. president Ronald Reagan, introduces Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle during a Get Out the Vote rally in Las Vegas. (AP)

Contrary to news report, Michael Reagan, the son of the former president, told Fox News on Wednesday that he is not running for the Senate seat in California currently held by Democrat Dianne Feinstein and hasn't considered the idea.

Reagan added that he doesn't know how that news got reported by The San Francisco Chronicle, which is in Feinstein's hometown.

"I never even spoke to anyone at the Chronicle and I am not running for Senate in California," he said.

Feinstein is currently polling low and there has been some suggestion that she would announce by this coming March her intentions not to run next year at the age of 79. While her final decision hasn't been made, Reagan tells said his decision is final whether Feinstein runs or not.

Reagan, presently a public speaker and political consultant, said he enjoys what he is doing right now and laughed that the Senate position would "be a pay cut anyway."

Reagan also lamented the turn politics has taken since his father, who became president in 1981, entered politics in the 1950s with endorsements for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"Politics has changed so much since my dad was president and governor. Politics has become so personal and I don't want to put my family in that position. I don't want them on the front pages and if the race was close, that's exactly what would happen. We now go after families and they are no longer off limits and I wont do that to mine," he said.

If Feinstein doesn't run, her close friend and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been mentioned as a candidate as has former Rep. Jane Harman, who retired from Congress earlier this year to run the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, D.C.

On the Republican side, former gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon and former Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner have been mentioned as possible contenders.

Fox News' Adam Housley contributed to this report.