December 2, 2008 8:30:45 PM CST
(Newser) – Cindy McCain is a classic Western loner who chose to raise her kids as a self-styled “single parent” in Phoenix rather than join John in Washington as he served in the Senate. She may be a size zero, but she has "unusual grit": she drives a race car, flies a plane, and she likes to tell stories of making big decisions and then springing them on John, Ariel Levy writes in the New Yorker.
Her penchant for distance also includes evasiveness—"In the time that I spent with the McCains, Cindy never looked me in the eye, even when she was speaking to me," Levy writes. And there's a tendency to edit out inconvenient details, like John's first marriage and her own half-sister from her father's first marriage. As to her role in the campaign: “You can see the toe marks in the sand where I was brought on board,” she says.
Source New Yorker
Nov 16, 08 11:00 AM CST Backlash against the New York Times reporter who contacted minors on Facebook to locate sources has led Times public editor Clark Hoyt to declare, “I would not have sent the messages.” Jodi Kantor, author of last month’s unflattering front-page profile of Cindy McCain, reached out to classmates of McCain's daughter to find parents who knew McCain. Her efforts were labeled by some as “disgusting.” More »
Nov 7, 08 2:56 PM CST John McCain released his first public statement today since conceding the election, congratulating President-elect Barack Obama and urging supporters to work together with the new administration, the Hill reports. “Although we were disappointed with the results,” the joint statement with wife Cindy said, “we must move beyond this campaign and work together to get our country moving again.” More »
Oct 23, 08 3:00 PM CDT That the GOP dressed up “a no-frills hockey mom” for her star turn is fine, but that they dressed her up in Neiman's, Saks, and Barneys is “mind-boggling evidence of a tin ear for the symbolism of popular culture,” style maven Robin Givhan wails in the Washington Post. It doesn’t take much fashion knowledge to know a $10,000 handbag represents “exclusivity, success, and classiness”—not Jane Six-Pack. More »
Oct 18, 08 11:17 AM CDT Cindy McCain is giving her all to get her husband into the White House despite the tough time the capital has given her in the past, the New York Times reports. When she moved there early in her marriage, the young political wife found herself ostracized by cliquey congressional wives outraged that McCain had dumped the popular Carol McCain for a younger, richer woman. More »
Oct 13, 08 6:07 PM CDT The days when politicians could take refuge on daytime TV, hiding behind softball interviews and happy talk about favorite recipes, are over, Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. Tracing the trend from soaps through Phil Donohue to Oprah and Ellen to the unrivaled supremacy of The View, she observes, "It has recently become more common to see politicians, especially John McCain, made uncomfortable by the directness of the conversation on daytime television." More »
Election 2008 • John McCain • privacy • Cindy McCain • drug addiction • New Yorker magazine
