Artis Cindy Hensley McCain Role Affair

Cindy Lou Hensley McCain (born Cindy Lou Hensley on May 20, 1954^[1]) is the wife of United States Senator and 2000 and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona. She is chair of Hensley & Co.,^[2][3] one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the nation.^[2] She also founded and ran a non-profit organization from 1988 to 1995 that organized trips by medical personnel to disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas. She continues to be an active philanthropist and serves on the boards of several charitable organizations.

Early life and educationCindy Lou Hensley was born in Phoenix, Arizona,^[4] to James Hensley, who founded Hensley & Co. in 1955,^[3] and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley.^[5][4] She grew up as an only child^[6] in affluent circumstances^[7], and was a rodeo queen in 1968.^[8] She went to Central High School^[6] in Phoenix, where she graduated in 1972.^[9]

Hensley received a Bachelor of Arts in education and a Master of Arts in special education, both from the University of Southern California.^[1][10] At USC, she was a cheerleader^[11] and a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.^[12] There she participated in a movement therapy pilot program that laid the way for a standard treatment for children with severe disabilities;^[10] she published the work Movement Therapy: A Possible Approach in 1978.^[13] Declining a role in the family business,^[14] she then began a special education teaching career working with children with disabilities at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona.^[10][4]

Marriage and family

Hensley met John McCain in April 1979 at a military reception in Hawaii.^[15] He was the U.S. Navy liaison officer to the United States Senate, almost eighteen years her senior.^[16] He was married to his wife Carol, and had previously had extramarital affairs in the mid-1970s.^[17] Carol and John McCain had separated briefly once, but had since come back together.^[15] McCain and Hensley quickly began a relationship.^[16] Carol and John McCain finally separated in late 1979,^[15][18] Carol accepted a divorce in February of 1980,^[15] effective in April 1980, and then John and Cindy were married on May 17, 1980 in Phoenix. They made a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name;^[19] they have since kept their finances apart and file separate income tax returns.^[19]

Her father's business and political contacts helped gain her husband a foothold into Arizona politics;^[15] she campaigned with her husband door-to-door during his successful first bid for U.S. Congress in 1982,^[8] with her wealth from an expired trust from her parents providing significant loans to the campaign^[20][21][22] and helping it survive a period of early debt.^[23] Once he was elected, the couple moved to Alexandria, Virginia.^[24] She spent two months in late 1983 writing handwritten notes on over 4,000 Christmas cards to be sent to constituents and others, and grew homesick for Arizona.^[24]

After several miscarriages,^[16] Cindy Hensley McCain gave birth to her first three children: Meghan (born 1984), John Sidney IV (known as "Jack") (born 1986), and James (known as "Jimmy") (born 1988).^[25] By early 1984, she had moved back to Arizona;^[24] her parents lived across the street and helped her raise the children while her husband was frequently in Washington.^[16]

Role in 2000 presidential campaign

Although wary of the media,^[7] McCain was active in her husband's eventually unsuccessful campaign for President of the United States in 2000.^[14] She mostly provided good cheer, without discussing her opinions about national policy. She impressed Republican voters with her looks and elegance at coffee shops and other small campaign settings, where she frequently referred to her children, carpooling, and charity work.^[8]

She was upset by the notorious smear tactics against her husband in the South Carolina primary that year, which included allegations involving her adopted daughter Bridget that she found "despicable".^[14] Cindy McCain eventually forgave those responsible.^[8] She was chosen as the chair of the Arizona delegation to the 2000 Republican National Conventio

Role in 2008 presidential campaign

She has been active and visible in her husband's presidential campaign during 2007 and 2008.^[8] She made statements critical of the Bush administration for not deploying enough troops during the Iraq War,^[8] and was an internal critic within the McCain campaign of its profligate spending during the first part of 2007.^[11] During the campaign, she returned to Arizona frequently to attend to domestic duties^[38] and interrupted campaigning for her overseas charitable work.^[11] She has stated that the American public wants a First Lady of the United States who will tend toward a traditional role in that position.^[41] She would not attend Cabinet meetings,^[38] but would continue her involvement in overseas non-profit organizations and would urge Americans to do the same globally or locally.^[38]

In February 2008, McCain made news by being critical of Michelle Obama, the wife of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who had said, "And let me tell you something: For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country." McCain replied: "I am proud of my country. I don't know about you — if you heard those words earlier — I am very proud of my country."^[42] Also in February 2008, she publicly appeared aside her husband during a press conference in response to a newspaper report regarding his connection to a lobbyist.^[43] In April 2008, some recipes on the McCain campaign website attributed to Cindy McCain turned out to be copied from the Food Network;^[44][45] the campaign attributed the problem to an error by an intern.^[44] Earlier in the year, Cindy McCain submitted as her own a Food Network recipe for passion fruit mousse to an article published in The New York Sun.^[44] In May 2008, she declined to make her separate income tax return public, saying it was a privacy issue and that she would not do so even if she became First Lady.^[46] Later the same month, she released the first two pages of her 2006 return, which showed $6 million in income for that year (including nearly $570,000 in itemized deductions and more than $1.7 million paid in federal income taxes).^[47] In June 2008, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that 49 percent of voters viewed Cindy McCain favorably and 29 percent unfavorably,^[48] while an ABC News/Washington Post poll found figures of 39 percent and 25 percent respectively.^[49]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Hensley_McCain