In Search of Cindy McCain

Since returning to Arizona full time, Cindy had been largely absent from his political life. When McCain was campaigning for the Senate, his wife occasionally joined him, but she didn't like fund-raisers or speaking before crowds. And she especially wanted no part in the political combat he so obviously relished. She worried that if he ran for president, she would have to embrace all those things. More than anything, she didn't like the idea of leaving her kids at home alone while she campaigned.

But as she joined her husband on the Straight Talk Express in the fall of 1999, she found she enjoyed life on the trail. "For most of the 20 years we've been married, he's been in Washington all week while I'm in Arizona with the kids," she told The New York Times. "I've never spent this much time with my husband."

Soon, the woman who once shunned attention was traveling on her own, dropping in on diners to talk one-on-one with voters. But her newfound love of politics didn't last. McCain lost the South Carolina primary after a vicious dirty-tricks campaign, in which his opponents smeared Cindy as a drug addict and spread rumors that Bridget was really McCain's illegitimate child. Cindy cried in full view of reporters. When her husband dropped out of the race, Cindy retreated once again to Arizona, furious. She now admits it took her a long time to get over it, much longer than her husband. "It was my daughter," she says. "I think any mother would agree with me. You can go after me, but stay away from my children."

Cindy decided not to tell Bridget about what had happened in South Carolina until she was old enough to understand. But not long ago, the 16-year-old discovered it on her own when she Googled her name. She asked her mother why President Bush hated her. "I did the best I could to say it wasn't President Bush," Cindy says. "But what she doesn't understand is … how could people say things like that." Cindy has admitted that she has what she calls a "grudge list" of people she believes have maligned her husband or her family. The senator, she says, is much quicker to forgive. "I guess I have a longer memory," she says, flashing a wicked smile.

It was conventional wisdom that McCain would run again in 2008. Once more, he knew his first opponent would be his wife. "She had very clear misgivings about it, very clear," McCain told reporters earlier this year. One of her concerns: her health. In 2004, Cindy was at lunch with friends in Phoenix when she began to have trouble speaking. As she tried to get up, she found that her arm and leg were numb. "I literally couldn't talk," she told NEWSWEEK. "I thought, 'Oh my God, people are going to think I'm drunk and it's only 11 o'clock in the morning'." A friend's husband rushed her to the emergency room.

Cindy had suffered a stroke, caused in part because she had stopped taking her blood-pressure medication. She thought she would be able to regulate her condition with diet and exercise. In bed, barely able to speak, she fretted about who would take care of her kids. Her friend Sharon Harper told her she should leave town and focus on recovering. That summer, Cindy moved to San Diego, and rented a condo on Coronado Island. Friends looked after her sons and young Bridget. She spent months working with a therapist to regain her mobility and speech. "It was the best thing I ever did," Cindy recalled. "I couldn't eat anything, basically. And I couldn't walk … Each day I would get up and walk to the door of the building. And the next day I would try to walk across the way … By the end of the summer, I was making it up and down the beach."

Cindy was also worried her sons would become political props in the race. Her younger son, Jimmy, surprised his parents by joining the Marine Corps two years ago at the age of 17. They had expected he would follow the family tradition of going to Annapolis, where his older brother was already enrolled. Cindy made no attempts to conceal her worries about her sons' going into combat. Friends say it was one of the reasons she gave her husband her blessing to run for the White House a second time, despite her misgivings. "She simply didn't trust that anyone else would know how to deal with the complexities of what to do about the war," Harper says.

Friends have noticed that Cindy closely follows her husband's statements about Iraq. On the bus, she often listens intently when McCain discusses the subject with his staff. In public, Cindy alternates between a rhinestone USMC pin and a Navy pin. Yet she and her husband made a decision early on not to talk about their sons' service on the trail—partly out of fear that Jimmy could be put in danger.