Huffington Post says John McCain didn't vote for Bush in 2000
A McCain advisor calls the assertion by liberal blogger Arianna Huffington 'totally false.'
A report by liberal blogger and author Arianna Huffington that John McCain had admitted not voting for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race spurred a minor tempest and brought angry denials from McCain's campaign on Tuesday.
On her Huffington Post website Monday, the pundit reported that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had confided shortly after his bitter loss nearly eight years ago that he had not voted for Bush.
McCain suffered sharp attacks from Bush supporters in the 2000 race, and his disdain for the tactics was no secret. But Huffington's revelation, if true, would debunk the Arizona senator's longtime stance as the loyal Republican who closed ranks behind Bush.
McCain advisor Mark Salter rejected Huffington's assertion as "totally false."
"Arianna has a new book to promote," Salter said Tuesday. "Whatever her cause celebre of the moment is -- and it's always subject to further revisions with her -- she will say anything to promote it and make anything up. That's been her modus operandi for years."
Reached by phone in Miami, Huffington stood by her story. She said she previously had admired McCain but gradually became disillusioned, persuaded that he had forsaken his maverick, truth-telling ways in pursuit of the presidency.
"I felt the media is so enamored with McCain and they are giving him a pass on one thing after another," Huffington said. "I think there is a disconnect in the country . . . and I felt it was time for me to tell what I knew."
Huffington said she was at a dinner party held by a Hollywood celebrity days before Bush's Jan. 20, 2001, swearing in when McCain and his wife, Cindy, confided they had not voted for Bush. (Cindy said she cast a write-in vote for her husband; McCain did not specify how he marked his ballot, Huffington said.)
The McCains at the time had just completed a bruising primary race, which included false charges that Cindy McCain was a drug addict and that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child.
Another woman who attended the 2001 dinner said in an interview Tuesday that Cindy McCain also told her that she could not bring herself to vote for Bush. The source said she did not want to be identified, so as not to alienate the McCains.
Nearly 1,200 posts on the Huffington Post by early Tuesday evening ran the gamut, from those who praised the commentator ("You are one of the few with the courage to speak out with the truth these days") to those who said Huffington was a craven opportunist ("If you had released this revelation separate from your new book, I would be impressed.")
james.rainey@latimes.com
Times staff writer Maeve Reston in Winston-Salem, N.C., contributed to this report.
