The Perfect Part

"I only saw him on the weekends, and I didn't want him to come home to this woman who couldn't do anything," McCain told the Chicago Tribune in April. "I completely masked it and completely kept myself somewhat pain-free and [with] the ability to function and do everything he wanted."

Close friend Betsey Bayless, a hospital executive and a former Arizona secretary of state, says she did not detect anything wrong with Cindy at the time.

"She told me many times that she wanted to be the perfect wife and mother, and she wanted to be everything that John McCain wanted her to be," Bayless says. "And she pretty much was the perfect wife and mother, but, you know, she had to come to the realization that everything isn't perfect."

"She wanted to be the best possible Mrs. John S. McCain as she could," Joe McCain says. "I think she honestly felt that she did not want to be one of his problems."

A Protector of Family

In 1994, after the Drug Enforcement Administration began looking into medication missing from Cindy's charity, and her recent addiction became front-page news in Arizona, Joe McCain says he saw the self-control fall away, briefly. He called the house in Phoenix to make her feel better, to tell her she was "decent" and "made out of real gold," and she began to cry. She cried and cried and did not stop. Joe says it was "extremely painful" to hear.

"I'd always suspected the vulnerability," he says.

Cindy McCain was never prosecuted. John Dowd, the senator's Keating attorney, got involved in her case and, in a deal with federal authorities, she agreed to a number of terms, including community service. She has said she began attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings. She has continued to drink wine, according to eyewitnesses.

In retrospect, John McCain told "Dateline" in 1999, there were times when he'd call home from Washington and his wife would sound "bleary" or forgetful. He blamed himself, he said, for not noticing.

McCain closed her charity but continued charity work. Today, she works primarily with Operation Smile, a group that repairs cleft palates and other facial deformities all over the world, and Halo Trust, a nonprofit that performs land-mine removal in countries affected by war. She has been to Vietnam, Morocco, Angola, Kosovo and many other countries in her philanthropic work. She is currently traveling in Rwanda with the One campaign, which raises awareness about AIDS and global poverty.

In 2000, when Jim Hensley died, Cindy became chairwoman of her dad's company. She is involved with big decisions there but not day-to-day operations, says President Bob Delgado.

Cindy McCain said recently that she sees herself serving a limited role in a McCain administration. Those close to the McCains say she was somewhat involved in the campaign shake-up last July after the operation went broke.

"She's not in there forging policy," says Mark McKinnon, the media adviser who left the campaign recently. "She just weighs in quietly and occasionally when she sees opportunities or problems that the campaign might address."

Cindy's friends say she has a kind of cautious radar for people. She seems to see her role as the watcher and protector of her husband and her children.

"She's told me many times that she's the only one he trusts implicitly," Bayless says. She says she's seen Cindy tell John "to watch out for certain things or certain people." They might be walking into a reception, Bayless says, and Cindy might whisper to John something like, "He's not our friend."

At the June town-hall meeting in Philadelphia, while the senator talks, Cindy sits quietly and eyes the perimeter. She smooths her skirt down on her knees. She sees two guys with their hands up, wanting to ask a question, but her husband can't see them, so she keeps signaling him subtly with her finger. He never sees her.

Afterward, several women from the audience are in a rapture over Cindy McCain. She seems so classy, they say, and her hair is beautiful, and she's a mom with children in the service, and she understands sacrifice and worry. And this might sound sexist, says Valerie Gaydos, 40, a businesswoman from central Pennsylvania, but she likes the way Cindy seems so traditional, seems to support her man and her man's dreams.

"She's flawless, flawless," Gaydos says.