The White House is chopping down a rumor that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist allegedly called up Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel last week to see if the administration would support him if he chose to run for the Senate as a Democrat.
"It's not true," a spokesperson for the Chief of Staff's office said.
The rumor about a Crist overture to Emanuel had been spreading within Florida's political circles, before managing, at some point, to make it's way to the national press. Several other journalists, apparently, reached out to Emanuel's office for confirmation.
Had it been true, the story would have provided critics of the Florida Governor with yet more fodder to insist that his principle priority is maintaining political power. Last week, of course, Crist announced that he would run for the Senate as a non-affiliated Independent after having spent months unsuccessfully floundering as a Republican. Since then he has been rather non-committal about which party he'd ally himself with should he actually win.
"I might not vote for either [party]," Crist said during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I'm going to vote for who I think is going to be best for the people of Florida. If is happens to be a Democrat, so be it. If it happens to be a Republican, so be it."
Asked by host David Gregory which party he would caucus with, Crist was equally noncommittal.
"I'll caucus with the people of Florida," he said. "When I'm an independent, I'm going to do what's I think is in the best interests of my people, and that's my decision."