In yet another remarkable political moment on social media, Cindy McCain, wife of 2008 Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, took to Facebook this weekend to give a pep talk to the spouses of the remaining presidential candidates.
“Most recently an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz was Tweeted,” wrote McCain. “For everyone who thinks this is ok in any party, please let me remind you, the spouses are drafted in to presidential races. We do it because we love our husband/wife. We do it because we believe in them with all of our heart. We believe in our country.”
Cindy McCain’s post was prompted by an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz that Donald Trump retweeted last week. The retweet prompted a rare admission from Trump who told columnist Maureen Dowd, “Yeah, it was a mistake. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have sent it.”
Cindy McCain is familiar with the attacks a presidential candidates spouse can receive, as I write about in my book Front Row Seat at the Circus:
Throughout the campaign rumors about John McCain “siring children without marriage” were being spread by a bible professor at Bob Jones University. Flyers were being distributed with a picture of a little black girl with the McCain family—leaving it to the imagination rather than the truth that she had been adopted after his wife Cindy met her during a relief mission in Bangladesh.
Most of the gossip, reporters learned later, was being provided to the evangelical right by Karl Rove, Bush’s top strategist. While researching the ugliness of the primary fight, Dr. Eddie Dyer of Coastal Carolina University told me, “The allegations have never been proven so you can classify them as scurrilous, but that took McCain out of the race.”
On primary day, Bush beat McCain by eleven points backed by a huge voter turnout in the conservative upstate.
McCain, with clinched teeth in Charleston, told supporters, “I want the presidency in the best way, not the worst way. I won’t take the low road to the highest office in the land.”
Now in 2008, back campaigning in South Carolina, there were questions of whether Cindy would ever return.
After the campaign in 2000 where rumors questioned whether she was addicted to drugs (she had become dependent on prescription painkillers after back surgery in 1989, but had stopped taking them in 1992), and where her adopted daughter came from, many supporters believed she was justified in campaigning elsewhere.
Shortly before the primary I spoke with Cindy about returning to the state that had done so much to end her husband’s presidential dreams eight years earlier.
“I resisted for a number of reasons—not just because of what happened in South Carolina—but our family has changed, our kids are at different ages now, and families go on. I really had to think about it,” she told me. Cindy McCain traveled the state in the weeks leading up to the vote.
On board yet another bus trip, McCain smiled and said about his wife, “The only problem it poses for my campaign is that so many people say, why isn’t she the candidate?”
Cindy McCain’s South Carolina experience in 2000 gives her special insight into the tough world of a presidential candidates family.
“For the wives who have been trashed in such ways, me included, I’m sorry and I feel deeply for you,” wrote McCain. “I understand the hidden and quiet tears never ever letting anyone see. We all manage to put our happy faces on and step out again and again in support of our husbands. But it doesn’t hurt any less. This is doubly true when our daughters are depicted in a harmful manner as well.”
Cindy McCain also takes a subtle jab at Trump writing, “how can we ever encourage young people to offer themselves a candidates if we somehow tolerate this kind of campaigning.”
Although her husbands reelection effort this year in Arizona has not yet turned negative, the GOP presidential fight is clearly weighing heavily on McCain’s mind.
“To Heidi, Jane and Melania, best wishes for you all. Keep your heads held high and your dignity on display. None of you deserve this. None of us did either. The good news is that there is an end to this. Your friend, Cindy.”