The Woman By His Side

From middle distance, Cindy McCain seems shy, a little fragile, a suburban matron with a rich father and a degree from USC--"the University of Spoiled Children," her husband likes to tease. Watch her on the campaign trail, however, and she comes across as tough and protective. She mothers McCain, unsuccessfully supervising his diet and handing him the bottle of disinfectant he likes to use after serial glad-shaking. During debate preparation, she stands along the back wall, her bright blue eyes watchful as McCain banters and cracks jokes. Cindy, 45, McCain's second wife and nearly 20 years his junior, has always been a partner in political ambition. It was her father, Jim Hensley, a wealthy beer distributor in Arizona, who helped bankroll and launch McCain's first congressional race back in 1982.

Still, the senator says that his wife is ambivalent about his run for the presidency. She knew she would have to relive a dark period in her life, when she became addicted to prescription pain relievers and ran afoul of the law. Last October she sought some inoculation, telling her story to "Dateline." She described how she had had trouble coping with two back operations and began popping Percocet and Vicodin in 1989. She hid her habit from her husband, stealing the drugs from a charity she had set up to send medical relief to the Third World. Senator McCain, who was living in Washington five days a week while Cindy stayed in Phoenix with the kids, told "Dateline" he was chagrined that he did not notice his wife was drug-addicted for a least a couple of years. It was Cindy's parents who confronted her; she quit cold turkey in 1992. A whistle-blower from her charity tipped off federal drug agents. Cindy confessed and worked out an agreement with prosecutors to get treatment and perform community service.

On the campaign trail with McCain almost continuously since November, Cindy helps her four children--Meghan, 15; Jack, 13; Jim, 11, and Bridget, 8, adopted from a Bangladeshi orphanage--with homework via cell phone. (McCain also had a child, Sidney, 33, by his first wife and adopted her two sons, Doug, 40, and Andy, 37.) Cindy told NEWSWEEK that she has gotten over her initial reluctance to stump with her husband. "I thought I'd hate every minute of it," she says, "but I've been surprised. I've loved every minute of it." Well, not quite. Last month reporters pressed the senator to say what he would do if his daughter Meghan was pregnant and didn't want to have the baby. Cindy got up from her seat beside McCain in the "pit" and walked to the front of the bus, holding back her tears. She will need every bit of her resilience in the rough campaign ahead.

Victoria S. Stefanakos

© 2000