Ronnie White doesn’t know how the rumor started, but he wants to put it to rest: The former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court is not running for mayor.

“I’m flattered people would think that I can run for mayor, but I don’t have any interest,” White told me yesterday.

The buzz over a possible campaign by White may have began last month, at the annual “Yes I Can” awards banquet. I’m told that in his keynote address, White made a vague suggestion about running for office.

But mayor?

White doesn’t even live in the city — he calls Crestwood home — and retired from the bench to pursue a more lucrative career in private practice. (Becoming mayor would mean taking a pay cut.)

Perhaps the rumors were driven by wishful thinking from opponents of Mayor Francis Slay who are pining for a viable contender in 2009.

Though he apparently lacks the desire, White certainly has the résumé: He was city counselor under Freeman Bosley Jr. and served three terms as a state representative before becoming the state’s first black Supreme Court judge.

Of course, White is also battle-tested: He was stunned by John Ashcroft in 1999, who engineered a party-line vote in the Senate to defeat White’s nomination to the federal bench. Later, when Ashcroft himself was in the nomination process for Attorney General, White spoke at his confirmation hearing.

Still, White says there is no chance of seeing him on the ballot. Curious minds, he said, should read nothing into the fact that, despite living in the county, he still owns a condo near Lafayette Square.

He insists he does not have his eyes on Room 200 — or any other elected office.

“I’m retired from public service,” White said.