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"  Age: 54 Hometown: Phoenix Cindy&amp;#039;s Family: Husband, John, 72; children Meghan, 24, Jack, 22, James, 20, and Bridget, 17; and stepchildren Doug, 49, Andrew, 46, and Sidney, 42 What&amp;#039;s your typical day like on the campaign trail? &amp;quot;I start off very early, around 6 a.m., so coffee is an ultimate necessity. John and I do a briefing with our staff, then we hit the road \u2014 or actually the air, because we fly in our own plane, which is so much fun. For the next 14 hours or so, we cover two to three states for town halls and events, where I introduce John. We unwind a bit at night then we&amp;#039;re right back at it the next morning.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s your favorite part? &amp;quot;The town hall meetings, because everyone&amp;#039;s all fired up. It&amp;#039;s so interesting to watch people all of the sudden ignite and understand what my husband is saying. We have this saying in the campaign world that if it&amp;#039;s not in their eyes, you don&amp;#039;t have them. I can see it in their eyes. I know people are excited.&amp;quot; How do you stay sane amidst the craziness? &amp;quot;I slip away for an hour with my iPod. I&amp;#039;ve got it loaded up with all kinds of movies and shows: My favorite is Deadliest Catch, and I love Megamovers and Dirtiest Jobs, too. I live a wonderful, treasured life, but it does get a little tense. So to be able to put on my headphones and escape by watching a movie or listening to great music like Jack Johnson or Cream is so relaxing for me.&amp;quot; How do you and John stayed close? &amp;quot;Well, I&amp;#039;m with him all day, which is helpful. And each evening in our hotel room, we connect by rehashing the day, figuring out what worked and what didn&amp;#039;t. We&amp;#039;re each other&amp;#039;s greatest critics and also best friends. Prior to the campaign, when I lived in Arizona and John was in Washington, I&amp;#039;d only see him on the weekends. Then we&amp;#039;d talk five times a day \u2014 we had a deal that he would always answer the phone for me and the kids, no matter what he was doing or what meeting he was in. That way, he&amp;#039;d stay part of our mix.&amp;quot; When you&amp;#039;re home, how do you spend your days? &amp;quot;I start off solo with a hike\u2014there are great trails near my house. Then I take Bridget to school and plan my day, campaigning or working on business. I&amp;#039;m always there when Bridget gets home from school, and we eat dinner together and make sure her homework gets done.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s your mothering style? &amp;quot;When the kids were growing up, I was a great multitasker \u2014 I could do 12 things at once while driving my Suburban, which you have to do with four kids. I&amp;#039;m still a very involved, jump-right-in kind of mom. I&amp;#039;m close to my kids \u2014 even though three of them are out of the house, we talk on the phone all the time. Today, I was campaigning and Bridget was out shopping, so she was emailing me photos of dresses to get my opinion about what to buy. I love that!&amp;quot; How has having two sons [Jack and James] in the military affected you as a mom? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s made me so proud of them and of all the children who serve our country. I also now have a deeper understanding of all the mothers who watch their kids deploy because I will say honestly that it was very hard for me during James&amp;#039; deployment. I couldn&amp;#039;t talk about it publicly as that might have endangered him. The one thing a mother wants to do is brag about her kids, and I couldn&amp;#039;t do that! Now, Jack is doing an aviation cruise in Brunswick, Maine and he calls me two to three times per day, even from the aircraft \u2014 which he&amp;#039;s probably not supposed to do! And James, my marine corps boy, just told me he wants to spend his upcoming pre-deployment leave with me. We&amp;#039;ll plan a little trip together. I&amp;#039;m very excited for that.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s your favorite go-to meal when the whole family&amp;#039;s around? &amp;quot;Tenderloin, believe it or not, because it&amp;#039;s easy to fix, it feeds a crowd, and everyone loves it. Eating meals together is so important to me. When the kids were growing up, I was picky about making sure we sat down to dinner together every night, and it kept us together.&amp;quot; What did you cook? &amp;quot;A wide range of things. We traveled a lot and I didn&amp;#039;t want my kids to go to other countries and say &amp;#039;Ew!&amp;#039; when they encountered the food, so I planned meals from all around the world. We&amp;#039;d have an English dinner one night, then we&amp;#039;d eat Asian, then South American, and Friday was grab bag. It was really fun! I exposed them to a lot, though I don&amp;#039;t know how good my cooking was. John is the real chef in the family. He takes great pride in being a great barbeque-er.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;re involved in your family business, Hensley &amp;amp;amp; Company, an Anheuser-Busch distributor. Is beer a staple in your family? &amp;quot;Yes, we all do drink the product once we&amp;#039;re of age!&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;re known for your adventurous hobbies, as an amateur pilot and a race car driver. What do you get out of those activities? &amp;quot;Oh, they&amp;#039;re just fun! It&amp;#039;s another side of me that&amp;#039;s so different. After a long day of politics, it&amp;#039;s so nice to engage my critical thinking in a totally different way. My hobbies take me away. They&amp;#039;re spirited fun!&amp;quot; What do you think would be the best part of being the First Lady of the United States? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d love the opportunity to bring light to issues like health and women&amp;#039;s rights around the world, because those things affect everybody very deeply. Though I wouldn&amp;#039;t be the type of First Lady to attend cabinet meetings or to lobby on Capitol Hill, I&amp;#039;d use my unique position to show up and draw attention to places where women&amp;#039;s rights are at stake, and to encourage the world to take a close look at what&amp;#039;s happening. That&amp;#039;s so important.&amp;quot; What do you admire about your husband? &amp;quot;I think he&amp;#039;s a genuine hero. He was treated terribly as a prisoner of war and came home with a beaten body, and yet he overcame it. It&amp;#039;s a personal story but it also says a great deal about him putting his country first. And that&amp;#039;s the only way he knows how to live. For John, this race is truly about his country.&amp;quot; Regardless of what happens on Election Day, what do you hope for and dream about for your family and for our country? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very basic. I want to ensure that my children are safe, that I can feed them, and that I can put gas in my car. And that&amp;#039;s what I want for everyone. I&amp;#039;m no different than anyone else in what I dream about for this country \u2014 that everybody has security and economic prosperity.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a4246/cindy-mccain-interview/>