McCain's wife ready for trials of trail

PHOENIX -- Cindy McCain was the reluctant wife of a presidential candidate during the 2000 campaign, and she wasn't eager to jump in again the second time around.

Although she has warmed up somewhat to the idea, she wasn't sure whether she could go through it again: She saw one of her daughters used in a dirty political trick. And she was just two years removed from a life-threatening stroke.

Now, her husband, Arizona Sen. John McCain, is mounting a run for the 2008 Republican nomination.

"You can see the toe marks in the sand where I was brought on board," she said. "I was reluctant to get involved."

What helped convince her was the fact that she is the mother of a son serving in Iraq.

"That's really what brought me back to the table," she said. "I felt so strongly about the importance of the actual situation our country is in, and now being personally involved in it, I couldn't say no to John."

Cindy Hensley McCain may draw voters to her husband, especially now that she'll be campaigning anew since her husband won the New Hampshire primary. At the same time, McCain is looking to protect her children, her husband and herself from the perils of politics.

Close family friend Wes Gullett, a political consultant who has worked for John McCain, compared a second presidential run to a second running of white-water rapids.

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"The second time, you know the river and the rapids, but it can be fundamentally different," Gullett said. "You also know where the rapids are and how to get around them."

Dirty tricks remembered

At times for McCain, supporting her husband has meant swallowing hard and forgiving some of the perceived wrongs from 2000. It meant heading back to South Carolina, the state where her husband was wrongly accused of having a child out of wedlock.

She is chairwoman of Hensley and Co., the Budweiser distributor for Arizona that her father started. She also serves on the boards of several charities, serving causes such as land-mine removal and global poverty.