In Search of Cindy McCain

When Jimmy was in Iraq during the primary season, Cindy, like every mother whose son is at war, lived to hear his voice. She kept her BlackBerry in her hands at all times so she wouldn't miss his call. When she went onstage, she would hand the phone to a campaign aide who would stand with it in her line of sight. "She slept with that BlackBerry in her hand," says Harper. Earlier this year Cindy approached the senator backstage at a campaign event. She was on the brink of tears. "He called," she told McCain. "I missed it." It was a rare moment of emotion for a woman who had vowed that, this time around, she would keep her tears in check whenever callous reporters were near.

Last fall, Cindy joined the wives of other presidential candidates, including Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards, at a forum about life as a prospective First Lady. Asked where they drew the line on matters of privacy, Edwards said she expected her life to be an open book. But Cindy disagreed. Looking back at the 2000 campaign, she said, "I found myself much more open and much more willing to expose or to—whatever—kind of lay it on the line." But this time, she said, "I have now, myself, learned to say no … I love going out and being part of the process, but for me, there comes a time when you just have to stop because otherwise I can't protect my children or my home life."

Cindy has struggled to keep elements of her life private during this campaign—sometimes in ways that have not helped her husband. After McCain became the presumed nominee, Cindy refused to release her tax records, citing the privacy of her kids. The decision generated bad headlines for a candidate who talks about accessibility and transparency. She finally relented late last month, worried the issue was becoming a serious liability. (Her return showed that she made more than $6 million as chair of Hensley in 2006. The campaign has said she got an extension for her 2007 return and will release it when it's filed.)

Also, Cindy has been somewhat wary of the press—worried, as she was back in 2000, that she could make a verbal misstep that will cost her husband. She had grown comfortable with many of the regular reporters on the McCain campaign beat earlier this year, but withdrew after The New York Times published a story questioning a relationship that her husband had with a female Washington lobbyist. (McCain said he had done nothing wrong and that the relationship was professional and appropriate. Cindy said she trusted him and called him "a man of great character.") Last week, accompanied by a few reporters from America and a crush of local Vietnamese media, Cindy repeatedly apologized to volunteers for Operation Smile while touring a hospital in Nha Trang. "I'm so sorry," she said, as boom mikes waved overhead. "I don't want to be a distraction."

Occasionally, Cindy has allowed some of the walls to come down. She's clearly more comfortable when her kids are near. Her daughter Meghan regularly publishes candid pictures of her mom on her blog—including photos of Cindy in the giant fuzzy slippers she wears in hotel rooms on the road, and dressed in pink polka-dot pajamas before bed. In Vietnam, Meghan teased her mother for committing a major fashion faux pas: wearing her hair in a scrunchy. "A scrunchy, Mom? Really?" Meghan said. "What?" Cindy said. "I'm not cool?"

Cindy, who couldn't get out of Washington fast enough two decades ago, now gamely—if not quite persuasively—says she would be happy to move back. Like most First Ladies, she would see more of her husband. She certainly knows how badly he wants to win, and, as she says, that makes her want it, too. Yet there is an unmistakable note of reticence: the uncertainty of a woman who has seen enough of the dark side of politics to know that she hasn't yet seen it all. "Hopefully," she says, "it will be a good experience."

© 2008