Dirty Sexy Politics by Meghan McCain Page B

aren’t paying enough attention to their appearance.
    How much time had Hillary Clinton spent considering her outfits and accessories for debates—or sitting in a salon chair getting her hair done? My dad didn’t have things like that to worry about.
    Not that he was on easy street. After forty-seven years of serving his country—twenty-four years in the House and Senate, twenty-three years in the U.S. Navy—he had a promising chance of becoming the president of the United States. The stakes were daunting, dizzying. When I thought about it, what he was facing, and taking on, I was amazed by him. He was so strong, and ready for all of it. But the stress was intense. He once told me that he thought the pressures of a national campaign were on par with the pressures of war.
    Dad seemed unfazed by the hot glare of media. From what I could see, he had barely switched gears. He was up to the challenge, and the job.
    But how ready was I?
    WHEN GQ CALLED AND ASKED FOR AN INTERVIEW , I didn’t flatter myself that it was really about me—or I tried not to. The campaign was winning, after all, which made my whole family more media-worthy. My younger brothers, Jack and Jimmy, were both in the military, which forbade them, for the most part, from giving interviews. My sister, Bridget, was too young, from my parents’ point of view, to be in the spotlight. My dad’s sons and daughter from his first marriage, Doug, Andy, and Sidney, were busy professionals with their own lives and families. I was the lone McCain kid on the road, and visible. I didn’t know a thing about giving an interview, but I was eager to help my dad in any way I could.
    Political kids are supposed to be an asset, which is why campaigns usually find ways to expose them, even exploit them, in order to humanize the candidate. Kids remind the world, and the voters, that—no matter how canned and phony a politician may seem—he or she is a real person with real stuff going on.
    My dad’s campaign seemed a little slow to jump on board with the family stuff. Even at the beginning of the summer going into the convention, I remember reading a poll showing that a majority of voters didn’t realize my dad had children—and although they must have assumed he was married, they didn’t know much, if anything, about his wife.
    My mom is private by nature and holds her cards close in a new situation. Once she warms up, she is almost as much of a free spirit as I am. Would voters ever get a chance to see that? Would a member of the media be able to see and describe her clearly, rather than just writing about her faraway stare?
    As for me, I am not guarded by nature, and the prospect of being interviewed didn’t make me too nervous. I assumed that all I had to do was “be myself” and the media would get me, and maybe even like me. That was basically my public relations strategy, anyway. Did I need media training? I didn’t think so. Just the word training made me imagine being led around on a choke chain and leash by one of those weird dog handlers in the movie Best in Show . I didn’t want to be a scripted daughter-of, or flatten myself into a boring cartoon.
    If I kept it real and didn’t bullshit people, I assumed that somehow I would be understood and appreciated.
    Like I’ve said, I don’t believe in secrets—or all the work that goes into trying to keep them. With me, what you see is what you get. Why should I act like somebody I wasn’t? Being open and unguarded is how I have always made friends and bonded with people, even in work environments and paid internships. I believe that, at the end of the day, my personal connection with somebody is most important. It didn’t occur to me that a relationship with a member of the media would be any different.
    My mom and I didn’t have a press person assigned to us, in any case. The campaign found us one after I screwed up, embarrassed everybody, and generated enough heat to set off all the campaign PR fire