Bridging 2 marriages, a large, close-knit brood

THE LONG RUN

By Jennifer Steinhauer

updated 12:24 a.m. ET Dec. 27, 2007

This is part of a series of articles about the life and careers of contenders for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

Before Senator John McCain steps in front of an audience at a presidential debate, his daughter Meghan makes sure his nose is properly powdered. And from the campaign bus, Ms. McCain blogs about New Hampshire through the prism of politics and fashion (“I helped Dad pick out some swank Timberland boots.”)

But Ms. McCain, 23, is one of the stark exceptions among the seven McCain children, who have generally shied away from campaigning.

Among the Republican candidates, Mr. McCain, 71, of Arizona, has the greatest number of children, who span four decades, two marriages, numerous states and a broad swath of the political spectrum. But they are largely absent in a primary battle in which families — and all that their presence implies — are central ornaments.

Yet unlike the absent children of Rudolph W. Giuliani, who have strained relations with their father, the McCain children speak with endearment of Mr. McCain. They have maintained close relations with him in spite of long absences during childhood, a period of intense disappointment — among his older children when Mr. McCain remarried — and the breadth of geography and generations.

Placing a value on privacy, individualism
As they did in childhood, the McCain children still find one another by their father’s side: in
rafting boats, on hikes in the Grand Canyon, on mopeds in Bermuda and relaxing in Arizona.

“I think he’d prefer the family kind of stayed private,” said Doug McCain, who at 48 is Mr. McCain’s oldest child and one of his four sons, and is a pilot for American Airlines. “I just think he is a big believer in individuals doing their own thing.”

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Although his youngest sons are in the military — Jack, 21, attends the United States Naval Academy and Jimmy, 19, is a marine stationed in Iraq — Mr. McCain is loath to invoke their names when he defends his foreign policy positions, even once when Jimmy was sitting in the audience before deployment. (Hardly anyone knew he was there.)

On a recent stop in South Carolina, as a mother who had lost her son in Iraq began to suggest that Mr. McCain understood her plight because of Jimmy, Mr. McCain gently motioned for her to stop.

Ms. McCain is omnipresent at town-hall-style meetings, V.F.W. halls and other campaign stops, but quietly watches from the corner of the room, where she teeters on a pair of high heels in a dress that is perhaps not best suited for December. Even with her blog, Ms. McCain goes largely unrecognized. The senator likes to flip open his cellphone to display a photograph of the two of them at her college graduation — he calls it his “$200,000 screen saver” — even when Ms. McCain is standing just a few feet away.

An expansive brood
Asked during an interview this fall about his reluctance to bring attention to his expansive brood, the normally loquacious Mr. McCain, who is unabashed on any number of topics, seemed uncomfortable.

“It’s intentional,” he said. “I just feel it’s inappropriate for us to mention our children. I don’t want people to feel that, it’s just, I’d like them to have their own lives. I wouldn’t want to seem like I’m trying to gain some kind of advantage. I just feel that it’s a private thing.”

Mr. McCain’s family is as complicated as it is large.

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There are the children from his first marriage — Doug and Andy, from his first wife’s former marriage — whom he adopted when they were small, as well as a daughter, Sidney. Then there is the second family: Meghan, Jimmy, Jack and the McCain’s adopted daughter, Bridget, 16, who became a target of dirty campaigning in the 2000 presidential race, when she was portrayed as the child of an illicit union.

Over the past two decades, the families have merged during rafting trips on the Colorado River and late-night card games, the older children finding pleasures and similarities in their half-siblings.

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