King County Executive candidate Dow Constantine has gone to great lengths over the course of the campaign to tie his opponent, former news anchor Susan Hutchison, to Republicans.

But at Thursday night's KCTS debate, Constantine was asked about his own contribution to a Republican: in 2002, he gave $50 to Luke Esser, a former state legislator and current chairman of the Washington State Republican Party.

"We're good friends from my time in law school," Constantine said Thursday night. "I believe that my contributions show that I am a person who can work across ideological bounds."

But in his questionnaire for the King County Democrats, Constantine said he had never given money to a Republican.

In answer to a question about his party loyalty that asked:

Have you ever supported or given money to a candidate from another party in a partisan race?

Constantine wrote:

No. I have always been a Democrat and always supported Democratic candidates.

Constantine's campaign spokesman, Sandeep Kaushik, said today Constantine had forgotten about his small contribution to Esser's campaign when he filled out the Democrats' questionnaire.

Hutchison was asked last night about her $500 contribution to Republican Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential run. She brushed the inquiry aside, explaining that she agreed to go to a luncheon to hear Huckabee speak, at the urging of a friend. (She said she didn't even attend the lunch after writing a $500 check to pay for it).

Hutchison said the contribution occurred early in Huckabee's run. "At that point," she said, "No one had really heard much about him."

But Hutchison herself had been telling people about Huckabee. Two months before her contribution to the Huckabee campaign, at a Washington Policy Center dinner, Hutchison spoke about Huckabee and how well he was doing in the presidential race. (Starts at about 7:00 on this video).

The P-I also checked into Hutchison's claim Thursday that the state Public Disclosure Commission had already dismissed 78 of 81 ethics complaints against her. That's not true, the P-I reported.