In Search of Cindy McCain

That doesn't mean she doesn't want it—particularly for him. Cindy is McCain's "best friend, best adviser and closest confidant," she says. As First Lady, she would not sit in on cabinet meetings. But the White House would give her a platform to advance causes, like special education, that are important to her. "My biggest goal is to hopefully inspire more people to get involved in their communities, to focus on, as my husband has said, causes greater than themselves."

For Cindy, the move to Washington would not be easy. Her family is deeply rooted in Arizona, and she hates to be away from Phoenix for more than a few days at a stretch. Her father, Jim Hensley, was one of the most prominent men in the state. A World War II bombardier, he was shot down over the English Channel. After the war, he and his wife, Marguerite, borrowed $10,000 to start a liquor business. Through the years, it grew to become one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributorships in the country.

An only child, Cindy Lou Hensley got all the attention her father would have lavished on a son. He took her on treks in the Arizona wilderness, camping for days in the canyons along the Mexican border. At 14, she was crowned Junior Rodeo Queen of Arizona. In her senior yearbook photo, Cindy is pictured wearing a tailored dress suit alongside her classmates in sandals and hippie bell bottoms.

In 1972, Cindy left home for the University of Southern California. Her husband likes to say USC stands for "University of Spoiled Children," and Cindy looked the part. A cheerleader and sorority girl, she drove around campus in a gold Mercedes. But she took her studies seriously. Her father wanted her to enter the family business. Instead, she earned a master's degree in special education and returned home to teach kids with Down syndrome and other disabilities in a poor Phoenix neighborhood. "She took us all by surprise," recalls O. K. Fulton, then the school's principal. "She didn't have to work. Her dad had lots of money, but she went beyond what the job called for."

In the spring of 1979, Cindy joined her parents on a trip to Hawaii. At a Navy cocktail party, a cocky captain came up and introduced himself. John McCain was the Navy's chief liaison to the Senate in Washington. He was 41, but told her he was 37. Cindy was 24, but told him she was 27. By both accounts, it was love at first sight—though for McCain, it was far more complicated. He was a married father of three. His relationship with his first wife, Carol Shepp, was coming apart, and the two were separating, though he didn't divulge any of that to Cindy that first night.

"I monopolized her attention the entire time," McCain writes in "Worth the Fighting For." Afterward, he persuaded her to join him for drinks at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. At first, Cindy had no idea that her date was a celebrated war hero who'd endured years of torture in a Vietnamese prison. Her parents had to tell her his story. In his book, McCain writes, "they were more welcoming of my attentions to their daughter than I had a right to expect. I doubt I could match their graciousness should I find one of my daughters attracted to someone who reminded me of me."

Over the next few months, John and Cindy traveled between Washington and Arizona to see each other. On one of Cindy's visits to the capital, McCain proposed over drinks. They had known each other less than a year, but Cindy accepted immediately.

First, McCain had to deal with his current marriage. He had met Shepp, a former fashion model, before he went to Vietnam. He had adopted her two sons from an earlier marriage and together they'd had a daughter, Sidney. In 1969, while McCain was a POW, Shepp was nearly killed in a car accident. The wreck left her with permanent injuries. When he returned home in 1973, the two tried to make the marriage work, but they had little in common after six years apart. McCain has said he is responsible for the breakup. In February 1980, he filed for divorce. Little more than a month after the divorce was final, Cindy and John married in a glitzy ceremony at the Arizona Biltmore.