Bill Clinton scuppered Hillary's chance of being picked as President Obama's running mate according to a new book from  Obama's former campaign  manager David Plouffe.

"I think Bill may be too big a complication," Plouffe quotes Obama as saying.  "If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship."

Many Democrats had tipped Obama/Clinton as a so-called dream ticket for the 2008 election and the book says Obama was seriously considering Hillary to be his running mate.

But, according to the book, Bill Clinton torpedoed her chances.

Plouffe says Obama insisted on including his one-time rival on the vice-presidential shortlist.

"Obama was clearly thinking more seriously about picking Hillary Clinton than Axelrod and I had realized," Plouffe writes. 

"He said if his central criterion measured who could be the best VP, she had to be included in that list."

But, Obama eventually scrubbed her name from the shortlist fearing that there "were just too many complications outweighing the potential strengths."

"I think Bill may be too big a complication," Plouffe quotes Obama as saying.  "If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship."

Plouffe's book, the some-what obviously named "The Audacity to Win," comes out November 3