Vice President Dick Cheney has not yet reached out to “Cousin Barack” about their ancestral ties, and joked on Friday that he was uncertain how it would affect the Democrat’s campaign for the White House.

The vice president’s wife, Lynne Cheney, this month said she had discovered while researching her new book that her husband and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois were eighth cousins.

Larry Kudlow of CNBC asked Cheney in an interview whether he had spoken with Obama since learning of their family ties.

“Cousin Barack?” Cheney said. He said they had not had the opportunity to talk about it.

“I didn’t know whether that would help him or hurt him, so I thought I’d probably stay away from him,” Cheney said. “But apparently we do have a common ancestor, about eight or nine generations back.”

Regardless of the common ancestor, Mareen Devall, the two turned out quite different. Cheney, a Republican, pushed for going to war with Iraq, while Obama wants to pull U.S. troops out.

– Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria

– Photo credit: Jason Reed (Obama with Cheney in 2005)