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Title: John McCain releases his tax returns -- but not hers (Cindy McCain)
Source:
The Los Angeles Times Blog
URL Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/was ... n/2008/04/john-mccain-rel.html
Published: Apr 18, 2008
Author: Scott Martelle
Post Date: 2008-04-18 13:41:05 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 286
Comments: 16
John McCain releases his tax returns -- but not hers John McCain has just released details from his tax returns from 2006 and 2007, and possibly the most interesting tidbit is that he did not release his wife's returns -- and McCain married into wealth. According to the campaign: "Since the beginning of their marriage, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain have always maintained separate finances. As required by federal law and Senate rules, Mrs. McCain has released significant and extensive financial information through Senate and Presidential disclosure forms. In the interest of protecting the privacy of her children, Mrs. McCain will not be releasing her personal tax returns." Now you just know that's going to kick up a little dust storm. The Obamas and Clintons have made their returns available, filing jointly. So expect some political fencing over that. It's one thing to keep that kind of financial information in reserve when you're running for a safe Senate seat. It's another thing to not divulge your spouse's potential financial conflicts -- or gains -- with policy decisions you would make as president. As for the details, McCain took in about $321,000 in 2006 and about $420,000 last year. The big jump came in book royalties, though the oldest candidate in the field also received $23,000 from Social Security last year, up slightly from the year before. And he gets an Air Force pension. In 2006, McCain and his wife donated, from community assets, about $129,000 to charity and $211,000 last year. Most of that money, though, went to the John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation, which the campaign said in turn makes contributions. -- Scott Martelle
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#5. To: robin (#0)
http://online.wsj.com/article/ Cindy McCain Handles Limelight Candidate's Wife Fills Several RolesIn Public, Private By MONICA LANGLEY April 17, 2008; Page A8 SEDONA, Arizona -- On a recent balmy Sunday, John and Cindy McCain hosted the national press corps at their ranch here. Mrs. McCain's touches were evident -- the ceiling fans hung from tree branches, the art of their children displayed on the cabin's walls, the Budweiser beer tap from her family's business. Dogs she has adopted ran about. Cindy McCain regularly introduces her husband at events, but often retreats when her duties are done. Showing off his barbecue skills, Sen. McCain pulled sizzling ribs off the grill and dispensed them on the sweeping porch. Mrs. McCain, in skinny jeans with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, stood nearby and just smiled. The 53-year-old wife of Sen. McCain doesn't seek the limelight. While the picture-perfect Mrs. McCain regularly introduces her husband at campaign events, she often retreats after her duties are done, donning her fully loaded iPod and typing away on her silver BlackBerry. "The campaign gets to be a little too much for me," she said in an interview. "I take some time off occasionally...and then I get back out." As the wife of the expected Republican nominee, Mrs. McCain will face intensifying scrutiny. Both of Sen. McCain's potential opponents have high-profile spouses who have assumed very public roles in the campaigns -- and have at times undergone fierce criticism and media attention. The pressure already has begun. Recently, Mrs. McCain faced the press with Sen. McCain to deny news reports that her husband of 28 years had an affair with a lobbyist. Although she says she wants to be a "traditional" first lady, Mrs. McCain has led a life that by any measure has been untraditional. She heads one of the nation's largest beer distributorships, an Anheuser-Busch Cos. franchise inherited from her father. She has sported "MS BUD" on her license plate, and from the campaign trail she uses her BlackBerry and cellphone to oversee this region's rollout of Bud Lite Lime and to expand her corporate empire. Daughters Bridget (left) and Meghan. Last month, while Sen. McCain was touring Europe and Iraq to show his foreign-policy credentials, Mrs. McCain flew into postwar Kosovo on a mission to clear land mines. It was the latest of several trips she has made in recent years as part of a detonation team. She also supports the charity arranging the trips by serving on its board and making donations. "Cindy is a private person with her own stresses and commitments -- apart from her public role in John's campaign," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close friend of the McCains. "She juggles bowling balls." Sen. McCain, 71, calls his wife "a real trooper." After knee-replacement surgery following a fall in a grocery store a few months ago, Mrs. McCain, always meticulously dressed and coiffed even on crutches, quickly hit the trail. "Sometimes when we get in bed at night, I hear her groan" from the pain, the senator said in an interview. When John McCain met his future wife, Cindy Hensley was a 24-year-old only child on vacation with her parents. In Phoenix, she had been her high school's rodeo queen, sporting a cowboy hat complete with a crown. After earning education degrees at the University of Southern California (which Sen. McCain has called "University of Spoiled Children"), she became a special-needs teacher. She also got involved in the beer distributorship started by her father. Art Pearce, who worked at his own family's company, a Coors distributor in Phoenix, frequently ran into her at industry events. "You could tell by her air that she was very proud of her family's business," Mr. Pearce said. Her focus shifted as soon as she met John McCain, a dashing Navy officer in his dress whites, at a cocktail party in Hawaii, where she was vacationing with her parents. They had "instant chemistry," Mrs. McCain has said. She didn't know he had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years. She has said that they both lied about their ages: He said he was four years younger; she said she was three years older. At the time, Sen. McCain was separated from his first wife, with whom he had a daughter. He had adopted his wife's two sons. After a divorce, he married Cindy Hensley in 1980. Having signed a prenuptial agreement that her assets would remain separate, he left the Navy to join her father's business, Hensley & Co., as a public-relations manager for $50,000 a year. His young wife brought home much more from company distributions. Her family provided some of the funding when he ran for Congress in 1982. After his election, the couple began a commuter marriage, with Mrs. McCain staying in Phoenix to raise their growing family. "We really feel that one of the smartest things we ever did was have our kids grow up in Arizona," Sen. McCain said recently on the trail. "It's very tough to be a relative of a politician in Washington, because of the fishbowl effect." Although the commuter marriage continues to this day, Sen. McCain said the family took two vacations together every year and Mrs. McCain "is the one that always made that happen." In 2000, when Mrs. McCain's father died, she inherited the beer distributorship. Hensley's chief executive, Bob Delgado, said he sat down with Mrs. McCain to ask what she wanted to do with the business. He expected her to put it up for sale. "I want the employees and their families to know that I will take care of them the way my dad has," she recalls telling Mr. Delgado. "I'm not going to sell just because he died." Mrs. McCain said she wanted the company her father built from scratch to go to her children someday, Mr. Delgado said. Mrs. McCain assumed her father's position as chairman. She began focusing on strategic issues and big-budget items, leaving day-to-day operations to Mr. Delgado and Chief Financial Officer Andy McCain, her stepson. "I have good people in place...I trust them and I love them," Mrs. McCain said, adding that she speaks to Mr. Delgado almost daily. "I'm the ultimate person who makes the large decisions; major changes, growth decisions." Since James Hensley's death eight years ago, the distributorship has nearly doubled, holding a significant portion of the Phoenix-area market share. It has 700 employees and annual revenue of about $300 million. Mrs. McCain has approved the buyout of another distributorship, helping bring sales last year to 23 million cases of beer. Mrs. McCain (who can tell a beer's freshness by tasting it, according to her daughter Meghan) declines to say what percentage of the company she owns or its value. Industry experts estimate her stake at about $100 million. She owns a private jet, which Sen. McCain's campaign pays to use on the trail. She started the Hensley Family Foundation, largely committed to children's causes, to which Sen. McCain donates some of his speaking fees and book proceeds. In 1991, Sen. McCain became embroiled in the "Keating Five" scandal, in which five senators were probed for ties with a thrift executive. The Arizona lawmaker wasn't charged with any ethics violation. That same year, Mrs. McCain underwent two back surgeries, and she said she became addicted to painkillers. She resorted to stealing some drugs from a medical charity she had started and using others' names for prescriptions, according to news reports at the time. "I was trying to be the perfect woman," Mrs. McCain said in interviews at the time. "That was the darkest period of my life." The Drug Enforcement Administration began an investigation of Mrs. McCain in 1994, but she avoided prosecution by paying a fine, performing community service in a soup kitchen and joining Narcotics Anonymous. She had to close her medical charity. "Cindy faced up to her addiction," Sen. McCain said. Since coming clean, "I've never been secretive about it at all, because [talking about addiction] is part of the recovery process," Mrs. McCain said. "It's part of my life; it has made me a better person and certainly made me a better mother." The past year has been particularly stressful because their 19-year-old son, Jimmy, did a tour of duty in Iraq. Their son Jack also is in the military, attending the Naval Academy, as did his father, grandfather and great grandfather. Meghan, a recent Columbia University graduate, travels and blogs for the campaign, while the younger daughter, Bridget, attends high school. One day, Mrs. McCain answered her son Jimmy's call from Iraq as the campaign bus pulled up to a town hall where the McCains were scheduled to appear. The phone line suddenly went dead; she grew teary. Two minutes later, she stepped onto the stage and calmly introduced her husband. In 1991, Mrs. McCain came across a girl in an orphanage in Bangladesh. Mother Teresa implored Mrs. McCain to take the baby with a severe cleft palate; the senator's wife did so without first telling her husband. The couple adopted the girl, named her Bridget, and has seen her through some dozen operations to repair her cleft palate and resolve other medical problems. When Bridget drops into the campaign, Mrs. McCain goes out of her way to point her out. "I want to make sure everyone knows she's a part of us, too," she said. (The dark-skinned child was the subject of a "dirty trick" during Mr. McCain's presidential run in 2000, when unknown operatives spread the rumor that Bridget was the product of an affair.) These days, Mrs. McCain is active in charities specializing in war-ravaged and developing countries. This summer, Mrs. McCain will join an overseas mission of Operation Smile, a charity she has long supported that travels the world to perform corrective surgery on children's faces. Her reticence about the spotlight is why she surprised some friends and advisers recently by wading into a controversy involving Michelle Obama. The wife of Sen. Barack Obama had commented that her husband's run for the presidency made her proud of her country for the first time in her life. Mrs. McCain declared on the stump that she always has been, "and always will be, proud of my country." "It wasn't planned," Mrs. McCain said. "It wasn't about my stepping out on my own, but I do have opinions." However, she's more likely to keep them to herself. "My husband's the candidate," she said. "I'm not." Write to Monica Langley at monica.langley@wsj.com Copyright © 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
"Since James Hensley's death eight years ago, the distributorship has nearly doubled, holding a significant portion of the Phoenix-area market share. It has 700 employees and annual revenue of about $300 million. Mrs. McCain has approved the buyout of another distributorship, helping bring sales last year to 23 million cases of beer."
#10. To: TwentyTwelve (#8)
I've gotten pretty bored with the political scene lately; but I have to take issue with this quote...Mrs. McCain's distributorship has NOTHING to do with beer. Ever notice how they rack HER product seperate from REAL beer in the grocery store? Anheuser-Busch and BEER have very little in common...
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#7. To: TwentyTwelve, lodwick (#5)
At the time, Sen. McCain was separated from his first wife, with whom he had a daughter. He had adopted his wife's two sons. After a divorce, he married Cindy Hensley in 1980. Having signed a prenuptial agreement that her assets would remain separate, he left the Navy to join her father's business, Hensley & Co., as a public-relations manager for $50,000 a year. His young wife brought home much more from company distributions.
#8. To: robin (#7)
Replies to Comment # 8.
#15. To: TwentyTwelve (#8)
It has 700 employees and annual revenue of about $300 million. Mrs. McCain has approved the buyout of another distributorship, helping bring sales last year to 23 million cases of beer."
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