A member of the media makes fun of Cindy McCain and the use of the word Maverick when referring to Sarah Palin at the McCain rally this morning in Philadelphia. I record all of my audio live so I pick up everything in the room. If you just plug into the sound system you only get whats coming through the mic and not what's around you.

Filmed by: Chris Barrett
Philadelphia, PA
Constitution Center
October 20, 2008



Cindy Lou Hensley McCain (born May 20, 1954[3]) is an American businessperson and philanthropist, and the wife of United States Senator and 2000 and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona. She is chair of Hensley & Co.,[4][5] founded by her father and one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributors in the United States.[6]

She founded and ran a non-profit organization, the American Voluntary Medical Team, 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.

A member of the media makes fun of Cindy McCain and the use of the word Maverick when referring to Sarah Palin at the McCain rally this morning in Philadelphia. I record all of my audio live so I pick up everything in the room. If you just plug into the sound system you only get whats coming through the mic and not what's around you. Filmed by: Chris Barrett Philadelphia, PA Constitution Center October 20, 2008 http://www.directyourownlife.com http://www.powerhousepictures.com

Early life and education

Cindy Lou Hensley was born in Phoenix, Arizona,[7] to James Hensley, who founded Hensley & Co. in 1955,[5] and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley (née Johnson).[8][7][9] She was raised as the only child of her parents' second marriages[10] and grew up on Phoenix's North Central Avenue in affluent circumstances.[11][12][1] (Dixie L. Burd, who is the daughter of Marguerite Smith through a prior relationship, is her half-sister,[13] as is Kathleen Hensely Portalski, daughter of Jim Hensley and his first wife, Mary Jeanne Parks.[13][14]) Cindy Hensley was named Junior Rodeo Queen of Arizona in 1968.[15][16] She went to Central High School[10] in Phoenix, where she was named Best Dressed as a senior and graduated in 1972.[17][1]

Hensley received a Bachelor of Arts in education from the University of Southern California,[3][18] where she was a cheerleader[19][15][dubious – discuss] and joined the socially conservative Kappa Alpha Theta sorority as a freshman.[12][20] She continued on at USC, and received a Master of Arts in special education in 1978.[3][1] There she participated in a movement therapy pilot program that laid the way for a standard treatment for children with severe disabilities;[18] she published the work Movement Therapy: A Possible Approach in 1978.[21] Declining a role in the family business,[22] she worked for a year as a special education teacher working with children with Down syndrome and other disabilities at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona.[18][7][15][1]

Marriage and family
Cindy McCain, at christening of USS John S. McCain, September 1992, with daughter Meghan, son Jack, and husband John at the Bath Iron Works shipyard, Bath, Maine.
Cindy McCain, at christening of USS John S. McCain, September 1992, with daughter Meghan, son Jack, and husband John at the Bath Iron Works shipyard, Bath, Maine.

Hensley met John McCain in April 1979 at a military reception in Hawaii.[23] He was the U.S. Navy liaison officer to the United States Senate, almost eighteen years her senior.[24] McCain and Hensley quickly began a relationship,[24] traveling between Arizona and Washington to see each other.[15] John McCain pushed to end his marriage of fourteen years;[23] Carol McCain and John McCain stopped cohabiting in January 1980,[25] and Carol accepted a divorce in February 1980,[23] effective in April 1980. John and Cindy were married on May 17, 1980 at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.[15] They made a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name;[26] they have since kept their finances apart and file separate income tax returns.[26]

Her father's business and political contacts helped gain her husband a foothold in Arizona politics.[23] She campaigned with her husband door-to-door during his successful first bid for U.S. Congress in 1982,[16] and was heavily involved in campaign strategy.[12] Her wealth from an expired trust from her parents provided significant loans to the campaign[27][28][29] and helped it survive a period of early debt.[30]

Once he was elected, the couple moved to Alexandria, Virginia.[31] She spent two months in late 1983 writing handwritten notes on over 4,000 Christmas cards to be sent to constituents and others.[31] She was an outsider who was snubbed by the Washington congressional social scene, in part because Carol McCain was a popular figure in town,[32] and she grew homesick for Arizona.[31][15] She suffered several miscarriages.[24][15]

She moved back to Arizona in early 1984,[15] and gave birth to her child, Meghan, later that year.[15] She subsequently had John Sidney IV (known as "Jack") (born 1986) and James (known as "Jimmy") (born 1988).[33] Their fourth child, Bridget, was adopted in 1991. Her parents lived across the street and helped her raise the children while her husband was frequently in Washington;[24] she typically only saw him on weekends.[15] She organized elaborate fundraisers for him and expanded their home.[32]

In April 1986, she and her father invested $359,100 in a shopping center project with Phoenix banker Charles Keating.[15] This, combined with her role as a bookkeeper who later had difficulty finding receipts for family trips on Keating's jet,[22] caused complications for her husband during the Keating Five scandal, when he was being examined for his role regarding oversight of Keating's bank.[15]

American Voluntary Medical Team

Founding and mission

In 1988, inspired by a vacation visit four years earlier to substandard medical facilities on Truk Lagoon,[19][15] Cindy McCain founded the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT).[3] It was a non-profit organization that organized trips for doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to provide MASH-like emergency medical care to disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas such as Micronesia, Vietnam (before relations were normalized between them and the U.S.[19]), Kuwait (arriving five days after the conclusion of the Gulf War[19]), Zaire (to help refuges from the Rwandan genocide[32]), Iraq, Nicaragua, India, Bangladesh and El Salvador.[11][34][35][36][37] She led 55 of these missions over the next seven years,[18] with each being of at least two weeks' duration.[37] AVMT also supplied treatment to poor sick children around the world.[38] In 1993, Cindy McCain and the AVMT were honored with an award from Food for the Hungry.[11]

Adoption

While at Mother Teresa's orphanage in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1991 — as part of AVMT's assistance team following the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone[35] — she met two infant girls she decided needed to be brought to the United States for medical treatment.[24] She decided to adopt one of the girls (her husband readily agreeing), later named Bridget,[11] and helped coordinate the adoption of the other little girl, named Mickey, for Wes Gullett, a family friend.[11]

Prescription drug addiction

In 1989, Cindy McCain became addicted to Percocet and Vicodin, opioid painkillers, which she initially took to alleviate pain following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs, and to ease emotional stress during the Keating Five affair.[39][40][40][41][42] The addiction progressed to where she was taking upwards of twenty pills a day,[15] and she resorted to having an AVMT physician write illegal prescriptions in the names of three AVMT employees without their knowledge.[39][43] In 1992, her parents staged an intervention to force her to get help;[22] she told her husband about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility, began outpatient sessions, and ended her three years of addiction.[40] Surgery in 1993 resolved her back pain.[40][42]

In January 1993, Tom Gosinski, an AVMT employee who had discovered her illegal drug use, was terminated on budgetary grounds.[44] Subsequently, he tipped off the Drug Enforcement Administration, and a federal investigation ensued.[39][44] McCain's defense team, led by John McCain's Keating Five lawyer John Dowd, secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office for McCain, a first-time offender, that avoided charges while requiring her to pay financial restitution, enroll in a diversion program and do community service.[39][11][44] Meanwhile, in early 1994 Gosinski filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against McCain, which he told her he would settle for $250,000.[39][44] In response, Dowd characterized this request as blackmail and requested that officials investigate Gosinski for extortion.[39][44] In the end, both Gosinski's lawsuit and the extortion investigation against him were dropped.[39][40]

Knowing that the DEA prosecutors were about to publicly disclose her past addiction, McCain preemptively revealed the story to reporters saying she was doing so willingly: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them."[39][40][11]

Aftermath

AVMT concluded its activities in 1995 in the wake of the McCain narcotics prescriptions controversy.[34][39] That year, McCain founded a new organization, the Hensley Family Foundation, which donates monies towards children's programs in Arizona and nationally,[11] and she was largely a stay-at-home mom during the balance of the 1990s.[22] She also held positions as vice president, director, and vice chair of Hensley & Co.[30][29]

Role in 2000 presidential campaign

Although wary of the media,[11] McCain was active in her husband's eventually unsuccessful campaign for President of the United States in 2000.[22] She mostly provided good cheer, without discussing her opinions about national policy. She impressed Republican voters with her elegance at coffee shops and other small campaign settings, where she frequently referred to her children, carpooling, and charity work.[16]

She was upset by the notorious smear tactics[45][46] against her husband in the South Carolina primary that year, which included allegations involving her adopted daughter Bridget that she found "despicable".[22] Cindy McCain eventually forgave those responsible.[16] She was chosen as the chair of the Arizona delegation to the 2000 Republican National Convention.[18]

Between presidential campaigns
John and Cindy McCain at a Naval Sea Cadet Corps graduation, Fort Dix, New Jersey, July 2001.
John and Cindy McCain at a Naval Sea Cadet Corps graduation, Fort Dix, New Jersey, July 2001.

In 2000, she became chair of the now $300-million-a-year Hensley & Co.[47] following her father's death.[42] She, her children, and one of John McCain's children from his first marriage own 68 percent of the company.[48] As chair, her role takes the form of consultations with the company CEO on major initiatives such as new products, new plants, or employee welfare, rather than of an active physical presence;[49][50] she does not have operational control of Hensley, and Anheuser-Busch considers her to be an absentee owner.[51] By 2007, she had an annual income of over $400,000 from Hensley and an estimated net worth of $100 million.[26] She also owned at least $2.7 million worth of shares of Anheuser-Busch stock.[52][51] With her children, she owns a minority stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team.[30]

She became actively involved with Operation Smile in 2001,[53] taking parts in its trips to Morocco, Vietnam, and India.[53] She was honored by the organization in 2005,[53] and sits on its board of directors.[34] She joined the board of directors of CARE in 2005.[34] She is on the board of the HALO Trust,[34] and has visited operations to remove landmines in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, and Angola.[18] She makes financial contributions to these organizations via her family trust[19] and views her role as watching them in the field to ensure they are frugal and their money is being spent effectively.[50] On occasion she has criticized foreign regimes on human rights grounds, such as Myanmar's military junta.[54]

In April 2004 McCain suffered a near-fatal stroke caused by high blood pressure,[55][42] although she was still able to attend some events.[32] After several months of physical therapy to overcome her leg and arm limitations, she made a mostly full recovery, although she still suffers from some short-term memory loss and difficulties in writing.[42] She owns a home in Coronado, California, next to the Hotel del Coronado;[50] her family had vacationed in Coronado growing up, and she has gone there for recuperation and family get-togethers.[50] She or her family owns other residential and commercial real estate in California, Arizona and Virginia[30] and, including rental properties, McCain herself owns ten homes and part of three office complexes.[51][56][57] She is an amateur pilot and race car driver.[15]

Role in 2008 presidential campaign
John and Cindy McCain at a campaign stop, early February 2008
John and Cindy McCain at a campaign stop, early February 2008

She