Vice President Joe Biden says he’s “absolutely, positively” going to be President Obama’s running mate in 2012.  But if he wasn’t?

A plurality of Americans would strongly prefer Hillary Clinton to step in to assume the VP role, according to a new “60 Minutes”/Vanity Fair poll.

Forty-three percent of adults said they favored Clinton as a Biden replacement when presented with a list of possible names by pollsters.  

Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett, CIA director David Petraeus, Oprah Winfrey and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo all received single-digit support in the survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Clinton has remained a highly popular figure with voters, insulated from the political fallout over the lagging economy in her role as secretary of state.  A recent Gallup poll found 66 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of her, compared with 46 percent for Biden.

In a March interview with CNN, Clinton announced that she would leave her post if Obama won re-election. She also ruled out running for the presidency again, or joining Obama on the 2012 ticket.