Feature THE CANDIDATE’S TROUBLE AND STRIFE Her husband is willing to take the weight of America on his shoulders. But is Cindy McCain secretly hoping he loses his bid for the ? Report by Christine Toomey. Photographs: Christopher Morris

Support work: Cindy McCain helps her husband, Senator John McCain, with his coat on board their private campaign plane last April xx

stm30040.indd 2-3 20/3/08 12:59:47 40 The Sunday Times Magazine March 30, 2008 March 30, 2008 The Sunday Times Magazine 41 hoenix, . On the stretch of of pampered privilege, all is not necessarily April 2007 (clockwise pearly white smile, we need to return to a who still remember Cindy Lou as a girl. company. “Selling beer in the desert was a gold street where Cindy McCain grew what it seems. Family dramas are laundered from above): with Senator different era, to a time when America was not Behind 7110 North Central Avenue, where mine. They did pretty well for themselves,” up and, in the same house, raised in private, and rarely stain the manicured Lindsey Graham aboard tarnished in the eyes of the world, to the star- she grew up, one elderly couple, John and Sally Auther recalls. It’s an understatement. Hensley & her own family with the lives of neighbours – unless, that is, a husband the McCain campaign spangled days of the American dream, when JFK Auther, have lived in the same house for 50 years. Company, the third largest wholesaler of Republican presidential candidate decides to make a run for the White House. plane; smiling as her was in the White House; a time when Cindy They still recall Cindy Lou. “Her folks were Anheuser-Busch beer in the US, is now a Senator John McCain, tall, toned Then the world intrudes, poking its nose husband says he’ll stand McCain was just a clever, beautiful girl known in somewhat protective of her. She was not a real $300m-a-year business (which Cindy McCain women in tight-fi tting shorts jog into the nooks and crannies of respectability to be nominated as the the neighbourhood as Cindy Lou. outgoing type. She didn’t mix a lot with other took over when her father died in 2000). Even along the sidewalk in the sunshine. in search of the sleepless nights endured in Republican candidate; ) ) ) ) ) kids in the neighbourhood when she was young; when she was growing up it was a thriving Across the lawns of the spacious pursuit of such ambition. en route to Iowa In a society as transient as the United States, neither did her own children,” says Sally Auther. business. The Hensleys kept clydesdale horses, homes that trail away on either Friends and neighbours close ranks around where the average family stays only fi ve years in One point on which everyone agrees is that the large Budweiser mascot breed. side, gardeners, mostly Mexicans, their own, throwing up stone walls to intrusive one home before moving on, the North Central Cindy Lou was the apple of her father’s eye. Born liked to ride and, when his daughter was old stoop low, snipping hedges and questions, questions that won’t go away about Avenue area is unusual. For a street so close to in 1954, she was the only child of Jim Hensley enough, he took her on long treks through tending swimming pools. Cindy McCain and her life at 7110 North HAVING HAD A STRONG the bustling offi ce blocks of downtown Phoenix, and his wife, Marguerite, known as “Smitty”. Arizona to California and Mexico. The social lives of wives and mothers here Central Avenue. They present an impenetrable one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, it While Smitty was strict and reserved, Jim At 14, Cindy Lou was crowned the local Prevolve around husbands, children, pot-luck and united front to protect the woman who may has a strangely suburban feel. Originally an doted on his daughter and gave her the best of rodeo queen. At 15, she transferred to Central dinners and block parties. One has set up be America’s next fi rst lady. BOND WITH HER FATHER, orange grove where developers built ranch-style the privileged lifestyle the couple had earned. High School in Phoenix – its motto was an e-mail alert system in the event of rare winter To fl ank it, and to understand the long and homes so “upper-income residents” could keep Neither came from wealthy backgrounds. They “America’s high school”. The retired principal, frosts in this desert-city suburb, so that sometimes deeply troubled road that Cindy CINDY ADMITS SHE horses, it still has a gravel bridle path running the met in St Louis after the second world war Cindy Lou’s former teacher David Silcox, neighbours can quickly pull protective covers McCain has travelled to stand by her husband, length of the street. Families who live here tend and moved to Phoenix, borrowing $12,500 explains. “It represented all that was good about a 42 over treasured fl owers. But against this backdrop immaculately dressed and accessorised with a WANTED AN OLDER MAN MORRIS/VII CHRISTOPHER PHOTOGRAPHS: not to move on quickly. So there are some here to buy the licence for a beer-distribution America: opportunity for all, contributing 43

stm30042.indd 4-5 20/3/08 10:32:49 42 The Sunday Times Magazine March 30, 2008 March 30, 2008 The Sunday Times Magazine 43 to the common good, giving something back if she stands smiling by her man on the campaign New Hampshire, January was a prisoner of war in Hanoi. John McCain, a you’ve been given gifts by birth. All that might trail, sometimes suggests she is not happy at the 2008 (clockwise from naval pilot, was shot down on a bombing mission sound a bit hokey, apple pie and hot dogs,” he idea of moving permanently into the limelight. above): John McCain ‘SHE HAD AN INSIDIOUS over North in 1967 and tortured so says. “But it’s what we believed, and I still do.” In high school, Silcox remembers Cindy Lou with family and friends badly during the next 51/2 years in which he was By the time Cindy Lou arrived at Central as “a motivated, diligent student, very involved in after his presidential ADDICTION TO DRUGS held captive that he attempted suicide before High in 1969, however, storm clouds had already community-service activities like cleaning up primary election party in being released after the 1973 Paris peace accords. darkened the American dream. JFK had been city parks, helping the homeless and the elderly” Nashua; Cindy aboard the By then, Cindy Lou had gone to study assassinated; his brother Bobby too. The civil- – an altruistic streak that would thread through McCain campaign bus, THAT SAPPED THE at the University of Southern rights movement had been devastated by the her life. While contemporaries recall “a pompom the Straight Talk Express, California (USC), which one American reporter murder of Martin Luther King Jr, and Richard line girl”, a cheerleader, old school newspapers near Concord; husband BEAUTY FROM HER LIFE’ says McCain once quipped stood for “University Nixon was in the White House, sinking into the and yearbooks make no mention of this. and wife in conversation for Spoiled Children”. But the path his wife quagmire of the Vietnam war. But the only “Perhaps she was just a quiet kind of kid,” says as the bus reaches Salem mother took her to Los Angeles to get hers. chose after graduating with a master’s degree was mention of that faraway confl ict in the school Randi Turk, Central High’s dynamic English By the time she left Central High in 1972, not that of a brat. Returning to Phoenix, yearbook of her freshman year is a reference to a teacher, as together we leaf through the yearbook however, Vietnam had intruded. The yearbook she followed the Central High ethos of “giving “candy apple and chewing gum sale” held to raise of her senior year. There she is, looking prim in a is testimony to the generational turmoil the war something back”, and went to work as a money for children in South Vietnam. The book tailored trouser suit. While other students, provoked. It pictures a visiting congressman special-needs teacher in one of the poorer challenges students to follow the American poet shown fooling around in hippie hairbands and vowing that no amnesty would be granted to neighbourhoods of the city. Carl Sandburg’s plea “to gain recognition… have fl oral smocks, were voted “most congenial”, draft-dodgers, while a teacher is quoted as saying: “All of a sudden this beautiful blondie shows our faces noticed… [even though] such a position “most respected” and “most talkative”, Cindy “We’ve become the people that burn children.” up on campus and takes us all by surprise,” recalls may not at all times be comfortable… Faces speak Lou was voted “best dressed”. Contemporaries ) ) ) ) ) the former principal of Agua Fria high school in what words can never say”. These are poignant remember that while most girls bought their For the four years that Cindy Lou was at Central Avondale, 75-year-old “Okay” Fulton. “The kids 44 words now; Cindy McCain’s body language, as high-school prom dresses in the local store, her High, the man who would become her husband adored her. She was highly dedicated. She a 45

stm30044.indd 6-7 20/3/08 10:33:29 March 30, 2008 The Sunday Times Magazine 45 taught teenagers with Down’s syndrome and other disabilities. A lot of their parents were cotton farmers, some extremely poor, and she’d pay home visits to understand the kids’ problems better. She didn’t need to do that, any of it. Her dad had lots of money. But she was dynamic, dedicated, a happy young lady. She became an integral member of our staff.” After just two years teaching at the school, however, Cindy Lou handed in her notice. On holiday in with her parents in 1979 she met John McCain, then a navy liaison offi cer. Up until then, Cindy says, she had dated “very nice men from college”. But faced with a naval offi cer in dress whites, whom she describes as “intelligent, witty and thoughtful”, she was smitten. Having had such a strong bond with her father, she admits she wanted an older man. McCain was 18 years older – and married with three children. His fi rst wife, Carol, had been disabled in a car accident while he was held prisoner in Vietnam. But within a year he had divorced Carol and married Cindy. inevitable ups and downs of my political career have been behind the move. The couple were Realising his military career was never going have been rough on her. She has my love and devastated. The posters referred to a baby from to reach the heights of that of his father’s or support and that of her entire family.” Publicly, an orphanage in whom the McCains grandfather’s, both naval admirals, McCain had both say the affair strengthened their marriage. had cared for since she was 10 weeks old and his sights set on success in a different fi eld: What did not emerge until after these fi rst later adopted. Personally handed to Cindy by politics. With the help of Cindy Lou’s family softball stories appeared was that the reason the in 1991 during an AVMT fortune and Jim Hensley’s powerful contacts in McCains went public – though this was spun at mission in the country, the baby girl suffered Arizona, McCain moved to Phoenix, within a the time as an attempt to help addicts in a similar from such a severely cleft palate that it was not year was a congressman and, four years after that, situation seek treatment – was that the believed she would survive unless she was taken a senator for Arizona. He soon developed a Cindy’s life. But the McCains suffered a backlash Above: McCann gives a disgruntled former AVMT employee, after being out of the country for medical treatment. reputation as a political maverick – a trump card in the papers as a result, and have had an uneasy speech in Columbia, South sacked, had approached another Phoenix “I really thought I was politically seasoned, he is still playing in this presidential campaign relationship with local journalists ever since. Carolina, on April 26, 2007. newspaper with the story of Cindy’s theft of with fi ve or six congressional races under our with an electorate desperate for change. Sympathetic stories were spoon-fed to Top right: walking out to drugs from the charity. That newspaper, the belts at that point,” Cindy said afterwards. “But I But while McCain commuted back and forth journalists in 1994. One of them began “she was their plane in Manchester, Phoenix New Times, was on the point of did not have a clue – to involve my daughter was to Washington, DC, Cindy refused to move with a rich man’s daughter who became a politically New Hampshire, the day printing the story when the McCains called their unconscionable. I was blown away by it.” him. After suffering several miscarriages, she gave powerful man’s wife. She had it all, including an before. Left: with their 23- own press conference to take the heat out of the The prospect of her children being harmed birth to three children: Meghan, 23, Jack, 21, and insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the year-old daughter Meghan scandal. The employee, Tom Gosinski, claimed again as a result of such dirty electioneering Jimmy, 19. The couple also adopted a daughter, beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfl y”. after the presidential he was fi red because he knew too much. The tactics made Cindy wary of her husband going Bridget, now 16. Cindy wanted her family to Cindy McCain, the story went, had “opened a primary election party in McCains claimed he only went to the press after on the campaign trail again, close friends say. grow up in the same house with the same roots remarkably ugly wound in her life” by admitting Nashua, New Hampshire, unsuccessfully trying to blackmail them in Even she admits: “You can see the toe marks in and values she had. “A lot of the time, what I saw that for four years, beginning in 1989, she was on January 8, 2008 return for keeping quiet. But the damage was the sand where I was brought on board. I was with families [in Washington] was a pecking addicted to powerful prescription painkillers. done: locally the press felt manipulated. reluctant to get involved.” So just what did bring order among the kids: whose dad or mom did The addiction began after surgery to repair four As a result of the DEA investigation, AVMT her on board McCain’s campaign? this, and how close they were to the president,” ruptured discs failed to ease the pain. Her was closed down, and a doctor who worked for ) ) ) ) ) she once said. So instead the McCains spent addiction was so overwhelming that she the charity and had fi lled out prescriptions for In a western suburb of Phoenix, I talk to one of $250,000 remodelling her parents’ home as a admitted locking herself in the bathroom to Cindy lost his licence to practise medicine, while Cindy’s closest friends, Sharon Harper, whose Mexican-style ranch house, which Cindy secretly pop four or fi ve times the prescribed she went into rehab for a few days and then family has a weekend cabin adjoining the dubbed “La Bamba”. She went on to found a dosage each day, medication obtained from started attending meetings of Narcotics McCains’s in the red-rock country of Sedona, charity, American Voluntary Medical Team several doctors, each of whom she failed to tell was a connection between the charity’s supply I couldn’t deal with it,” she said at the time, Anonymous twice a week. south of the Grand Canyon. (AVMT) in 1988, to provide mobile medical that she was getting prescriptions elsewhere. shortfall and Cindy McCain’s drug problem. admitting that the scandal strained her marriage. Six years later, when McCain made an “Of all the things Cindy will say, No 1 is, units to disaster-stricken areas around the world. Eventually she took to stealing the drugs from The addiction was exacerbated by the turmoil Confronted by her parents in 1993 about the unsuccessful bid to become the Republican ‘I want to be known as a great mother.’ It was at this point that Cindy’s life took a AVMT. This led to an investigation by the Drug surrounding her husband’s involvement in a erratic behaviour that was a result of the party’s presidential candidate, the media revisited That’s why she’s doing this,” says Harper. “She dramatic turn. To the outside world the Enforcement Administration (DEA), which was political scandal known as the . In drugs she was taking, Cindy said she went cold this story, as it has done again recently. But the has two sons in the military now. Her youngest, McCains appeared to be a family blessed with tipped off by a disgruntled employee that there 1991, the US Senate investigated fi ve senators turkey and never touched the pills again. 2000 election campaign for the candidacy had Jimmy, was in until two weeks ago. She good fortune. But behind closed doors, the accused of using their infl uence to protect the A hysterectomy alleviated her back pain. She had even more disturbing consequences for Cindy. wants John to be this country’s next immaculate Cindy McCain was falling apart. fi nancier from a federal probe. managed to hide her addiction from her The South Carolina primary that year was commander-in-chief. Not only for the sake of ) ) ) ) ) ‘SHE WAS A RICH MAN’S Although McCain was later shown to have been husband, she says, because he was away so often described by one of McCain’s advisers as “the her own children but for every mother and The reporter I meet for coffee in a quiet corner among the least culpable of the fi ve, he faced a in Washington, DC. She only told him about it dirtiest race I’ve ever seen”. In an attempt to father like her with sons and daughters in harm’s of a downtown offi ce block in Phoenix is edgy. Senate Ethics Committee investigation. As the when the DEA came knocking with its dissuade voters in the Deep South from voting way.” Harper says that while the McCains’s son, a The McCains have a troubled history with the DAUGHTER WHO BECAME family book-keeper, Cindy McCain became investigation into her charity. “It was my secret. for him, posters were anonymously distributed marine, was in Iraq, his mother kept a mobile Phoenix press and he prefers not to be identifi ed. embroiled when she failed to produce personal It kept building inside me until I was afraid I alleging McCain had fathered an illegitimate phone strapped to her wrist so that she would As he tells it, the McCains attempted a classic A POWERFUL MAN’S cheques that had been used to repay Keating for might burst. It was the darkest period in my life,” black child. George Bush, who went on to win never miss a telephone call from him. “As a mom, manipulation of the media to contain the the family’s use of the fi nancier’s home in the she said later. When McCain learnt the truth, he the candidacy and two terms in the White she was terrifi ed when he was in Iraq,” says 46 damage caused by the drama that unfolded in WIFE. CINDY HAD IT ALL’ Caribbean. “I was on the fl oor. issued the statement: “I have no doubt that the House, was believed by the McCain camp to Harper. “She prayed every day and sent gifts. a 47

stm30046.indd 8-9 20/3/08 10:34:59 46 The Sunday Times Magazine March 30, 2008 March 30, 2008 The Sunday Times Magazine 47 But she kept it inside. It wasn’t until he came winning primaries in Ohio, and Rhode home that she allowed herself to cry.” Island, redrawing the battle lines for a protracted In the light of such maternal concern, it’s hard struggle for the nomination. Polls predict that to see what comfort she might take from her McCain stands a better chance of winning in husband’s talk of keeping US troops in Iraq for November if Hillary is chosen as the candidate. 100 years or more if necessary. The is But the same day as the Texas debate, The one of the hottest issues in the presidential New York Times carries a report insinuating campaign, and McCain is trading on his John McCain had had a romantic relationship harrowing military experience to convince with a female lobbyist. An ashen-faced McCain, voters that he understands better than anyone with sombre-suited Cindy by his side, had called what armed confl ict is. While his statements on a hasty press conference early in the morning to Iraq have caused alarm, as a badly tortured former deny the allegation and condemn the report as a PoW, his promise to close the controversial smear campaign. Given the lack of evidence in Guantanamo Bay detention camp immediately the article, his complaint was widely held as if he becomes president has been widely praised. justifi ed. But there was an eerie echo of Hillary But given all the baggage of the Bush White standing by her man as a clearly shaken Cindy House, he faces an uphill struggle to present stepped up to the microphone and declared: “I himself as a man who will introduce other The teenage Cindy Lou in her 1972 high-school not only trust my husband, but know he would signifi cant changes. Just how different his yearbook, with her fellow ‘best dressed’ student never do anything to not only disappoint our economic policies would be from those family but disappoint the people of America.” of one of the least popular presidents since A few nights later, I sit talking with two of polling began, and one who has accrued one of ‘SHE WAS PART OF THAT Cindy’s contemporaries from Central High. the biggest budget defi cits in US history, remains They have generously invited me to dinner, but unclear. The one area where he does distance OLD WEST CULTURE. IT a steely edge enters the conversation when I himself signifi cantly from Bush is on bring up the subject of environmental issues. McCain says he will make report. “That’s such garbage. John and Cindy tackling climate change a priority, and that he DOES SOMETHING TO THE have a wonderful marriage,” one of my hosts will begin by enforcing legal limits on the insists, before adding: “We really have to wrap emission of greenhouse gases. His children are INSIDE OF A PERSON’ things up quickly now.” They don’t actually ask reported to have pressured him on this when he me to leave, but I get the message. As I gather my called a family “summit” with Cindy before 71. If elected, he would be the oldest man to take things, one of them says: “I hope you’re not going deciding to run for president. up the presidency. Harper gamely rises to the to go writing mean things about our Cindy.” Harper, a formidable businesswoman, is challenge of discussing McCain’s age by telling Granted, Cindy McCain is not standing for suddenly overcome when she contemplates the an anecdote about how his 96-year-old mother offi ce. She has been thrust into the limelight prospect of the McCains moving to Washington, recently fl ew to Paris to celebrate her birthday because of her husband’s ambition. But in the DC. “To think about Senator McCain becoming at Maxim’s restaurant and how, on an earlier trip event that voters decide next November that president and how that affects his family, how a to France, after being refused a rental car because McCain’s age and experience outweigh the need little girl from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in of her advanced years, she went straight out for real change, she could fi nd herself in Hillary’s Bangladesh could end up living in the White and bought a car. “With those sort of genes, John shoes in the East Wing of the White House in House – well, it’s just beautiful,” she sighs. has enough energy to serve four terms,” she January 2009. There she would have her own When I ask where Cindy would fi nd the steel laughs, before, to my mind, defeating her own staff and undoubted infl uence over the next to deal with the pressures of living at 1600 argument by adding: “Besides, he’d only be a year “leader of the free world”. Pennsylvania Avenue, Harper says she believes or two older on entering the White House When I ask Harper what kind of a fi rst lady that having grown up in “early Arizona” would than the greatest president to have served this Cindy would make, she loyally suggests her give her the strength of character: “She wasn’t a country, ever – .” friend would combine the “elegance of Jackie rancher, but was part of that Old West culture – ) ) ) ) ) Kennedy with the graciousness of . out in the open, with big skies, riding a horse. All the time I am in Arizona, I am only too aware Cindy will be the same person she has always That does something to the inside of a person.” that the most compelling drama of this election been. She is reserved and shy. But she is good Just four years ago, however, Cindy suffered a is going on elsewhere. The week I trudge the one-on-one with people. She will reach out”. , losing both her speech and partial use of streets of Phoenix is the week But as I drive back along the palm-lined the left side of her body. Another friend I speak and Hillary Clinton sit elbow to elbow in Austin, avenues of downtown Phoenix and try to to says it was because she stopped taking blood- Texas, for a televised debate vying for the imagine the personal wrench it would take for pressure medication. After a period of physical Democratic party’s nomination as presidential her to leave her lifetime home here for the therapy, she is said to have fully recovered and candidate. The encounter is electrifying. For scrutiny of Washington, DC, I can’t help feeling has since taken up her son’s love of “drifting” – a days afterwards the television and newspapers that in the depths of her soul, Cindy Lou kind of motor racing that involves driving cars are full of little else. After winning a series of Hensley McCain might privately hope it is a sideways – to improve her co-ordination. successive primaries, Obama was generally road she won’t have to travel s Speaking of her friend’s stamina, Harper stresses agreed to have held the edge that night. Hillary that, in addition to running a multi-million- had only come to life right at the end, when she For more features by Christine Toomey

dollar company, Cindy also still regularly travels was asked how she coped with crisis and from The Sunday Times Magazine, go to

to trouble spots all over the world through answered, with a wry smile, that everyone in the involvement with charities such as the anti- nation knew she had had her “challenging In , nearly 1m baby girls ‘ landmine Halo Trust and , moments” – meaning as fi rst lady married to a ‘are aborted each year, and it’s which treats children with facial deformities. philandering president. Less than two weeks not just an Asian phenomenon Besides, the question of physical frailty is more later she was being dubbed the “Duracell bunny www.timesonline.co.uk/christinetoomey of an issue when it comes to John McCain, now of US politics” after retaking the momentum, 49

stm30049.indd 10 20/3/08 10:36:36 March 30, 2008 The Sunday Times Magazine 49