Cindy McCain Reported Income Exceeding $6 Million in 2006

"So you'll never release, you're saying -- never?" Curry asked.

"No," Cindy McCain replied.

"Even if you're first lady?" Curry pressed.

"No," McCain said again. "I'm not the candidate."

Since then, the Democratic National Committee and newspaper editorials have pressed the McCains to itemize their wealth far beyond the release of the senator's tax returns. They showed he earned about $420,000 last year from his Senate income, his published memoirs, his U.S. Navy pension and his Social Security benefits.

Senate financial disclosures have shown an estimated family net worth between $27.8 million and $45 million. On several occasions, his wife's wealth has been to McCain's advantage on the campaign trail. Their ranch presented an ideal setting for McCain to entertain news reporters and, more recently, possible vice presidential contenders. For several months, the candidate flew in the Cessna Citation Excel owned by her company.

Much of Cindy McCain's wealth traces to the Anheuser-Busch beer wholesaling company that her father started in 1955. She worked there for 20 years and took over in December 2000. At one point, her personalized license plates read "MS BUD."

At the time of his death, in 2000, her father James Hensley's company reported $220 million in annual sales. Cindy McCain now serves as chairman of Hensley & Co.

She also has significant real estate holdings, owns medical office buildings, parking lots and has a stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball franchise, according to financial disclosure forms.

When the McCain campaign initially announced it would not release her returns, aides cited as precedent the disclosure decisions of Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 campaign -- believing incorrectly that Kerry's wife had declined to share her returns.