Rubio says he's victim of D.C. rumor mill

The National Journal, with all of its Florida political sources, reported that two of them anonymously (of course) said former House Speaker Marco Rubio "has been calling around to top Republican donors and activists in the state" and mulling a switch of races, from U.S. Senate to Florida Attorney General. Backers of Gov. Charlie Crist, Rubio's opponent, gleefully started shopping it around in Tallahassee. But while it makes sense (Crist is on pace to crush him in name I.D. and fundraising), Rubio says the report is simply false.

"It's untrue," Rubio said. "This is part of the game they play in Washington."

Rubio pointed out that the day the blog hit the Internet (yesterday) he was stuck in a Tallahassee-Pensacola-Tallahassee car-ride for six hours with an Associated Press reporter who didn't hear Rubio on the phone chatting about that at all.