The Trail

SNUBBING BUSH IN 2000?

McCain Denies Vote Claim

John McCain denied a report posted late yesterday on the Huffington Post Web site that he did not vote for George W. Bush for president in 2000.

After sitting on the story for nearly eight years, Arianna Huffington said in an interview yesterday that McCain told her soon after the 2000 election that he did not vote for Bush.

"It's not true, and I ask you to please consider the source," responded Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain.

The conversation took place at a Los Angeles dinner party, Huffington said, and the senator's wife, Cindy, said she did not vote for Bush, either. The liberal blogger said McCain's declaration came after a tirade in which he criticized Bush's tactics against him in their battle for the Republican nomination.

"He never told me it was off the record," Huffington said in the interview. "It shows how far this man has fallen -- that he could not even bring himself to vote for Bush and now he has embraced him."

Huffington said she went public to counter "the media's love affair" with McCain.

-- Howard Kurtz and Juliet Eilperin

GAS TAX DEBATE

Economists Answer Back to Clinton

Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she'll have no truck with economists telling her where to put her gas-tax holiday.