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.

"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.

Yet when it comes to being a potential first lady, she sees herself in a traditional role, one in which she is silent on political issues.

"I think the American people truly still want a traditional family in the White House," she said.

The public wants a first lady who "does not participate in Cabinet meetings and take on legislative issues," she said. "Whether that's right or wrong, I'm not here to tell you that."

McCain's charities are affected by international politics. Operation Smile travels to countries such as Vietnam and India to fix children's cleft palates. Operation HALO works to remove land mines in places like Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Angola. The American Voluntary Medical Team works in war-torn countries. McCain says she reads up on issues that could affect her work but doesn't press her husband for Senate action.

"I'm not reliant on what they do or whatever the government decides to do," she said.

The McCains' youngest daughter, Bridget, had a specific reason to be concerned about another presidential run by her father. During the South Carolina primary, she was used in a notorious political ploy.

Bridget was adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage. But in South Carolina, the child's dark skin was used against the senator. Voters received calls from fraudulent pollsters who asked if they would think less of him if they knew he fathered a black baby. Ministers also preached about the couple having a child conceived out of wedlock.

"Obviously, South Carolina was certainly not my favorite place to be at that time," Cindy McCain said. Bridget didn't find out what was being said until 2006 when the teen typed her name into Google and read the stories.

No one has ever claimed responsibility for the South Carolina stunt.

Shyness conquered

Longtime Arizona politician Betsey Bayless remembered a shy and quiet Cindy McCain who would sometimes read stiffly from prepared texts while standing in for her husband at events. But that has now changed.

"She has a very, very sincere, personal way of talking to people," Bayless said. "I saw the effect it would have on the crowds."

McCain knows the 2008 campaign means the couple's life is being sifted through again.

She knows stories will bring up her admission that she was addicted to painkillers, pills she took from her medical organization.

During the 2000 campaign, her husband criticized the evangelical Christian wing of the party, and he was criticized for not falling in line. During this run, he has been less critical, even speaking at Liberty University, the school formerly run by televangelist Jerry Falwell.

Cindy McCain answers with her facial expression when asked whether religion matters in a political campaign. But her verbal answer doesn't contain the same wince.

"I've never seen it matter a whole lot," she said. "I think your faith matters, whether faith has been part of your life."

Her own faith was renewed, she says, after her 2004 stroke.

She passed out at a restaurant and woke up to see that "doctors and nurses were running like hell; everyone was in a complete panic.

"I took one look at what was going on around me, and I knew there was a problem." McCain's thoughts went to her husband and children. "I thought if I was going to pass, I'd like to be able to tell them I loved them one more time."

She shows no trace of the stroke's effects. But there has been one tangible result: The attack prompted her to move out of the only home she ever knew.

The property was large. With just one child left at home, the couple decided to downsize.

"It was very important to me to share my roots with them," she said.

But she wouldn't mind if, in January 2009, the couple moved to another house, also at the center of everything.