Dirty Sexy Politics

by Meghan McCain

  COULD WE REALLY LOSE?

  Could we?

  I just refused to believe that.

  Or could I?

  IT BOTHERED ME HOW CRUEL THE BLOGOSPHERE WAS about my dad. He was painted as an old white guy, and so out of it that he didn’t know how many houses we owned.

  All the counts against him didn’t seem like big negatives to me. People kept saying how old he was. Could he keep up? Did he have enough energy? What if something happened to him and Sarah Palin had to take over?

  In our family, we never really thought Dad’s age was a big deal, until the media kept pointing it out. To us, he was the man who was passionate about his work, the man who could hike farther than anybody, who kept the most grueling campaign schedule of all. Anybody who can keep a schedule like his was obviously not an “old” man.

  Just eight years before, in 2000, he had been a darling of the media, a Washington renegade. But now the media seemed to urgently need him to be a different person—not daring or exciting, or even a war hero, but a tired “Washington insider” who, like all Republicans, was tainted by the unpopular Bush administration and everything that went along with that.

  I didn’t recognize Dad anymore when I watched the news—or read the political blogs. To me, my father is an iconic figure, outspoken and honest, an old-school American hero. His character had been strengthened by the unimaginable things he’d been through. To be honest, I wasn’t able to read his memoir, Faith of Our Fathers, which includes descriptions of being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The thought of my dad having to endure something like that . . . well, it was just too hard for me, too painful, to read about. Someday, I would. But I wasn’t ready yet.

  I didn’t see how anyone couldn’t believe in him as I did. Even with all the shortcomings of the campaign and all the missteps, at the end of the day, I believed that he was the more qualified man. He had the experience to run the country, and the strength to fight. He is realistic about the scary times that we live in. As a member of a much younger generation, I thought my father’s experience would trump everything else in the end.

  I thought that people would look at his résumé, at everything he had done in the Senate—and see him as the safer, better choice.

  Running for president wasn’t supposed to be like American Idol. But with each presidential election, each decade, appearance and coolness seemed to matter more. It wasn’t just the candidates. The whole family had to be gorgeous, and media-genic. Was the most qualified candidate the most beautiful one, and the one who was so hip that he had Jay-Z on his iPod?

  I was sure America wouldn’t let the best man get away.

  Chapter 20

  My Lohan Moment

  The momentum kept swelling and swelling. The pressure never subsided. The week before election day was an all-consuming, nonstop, flat-out, scary, white-knuckle roller coaster ride of rallies, traveling, insomnia, candy bars, Diet Cokes, and stress. If there was a medical instrument that could gauge adrenaline levels, the entire campaign would have been hospitalized.

  Mom urged me to take a few days off and catch up on my sleep after drifting off my talking points in Colorado and then dealing with the minor furor it caused. But, all due respect to Mom, “taking a break” from a campaign ten days before the general election is like trying to go to bed early the night before Christmas. You are so wound up, so excited, so strung out and addicted to sugar and the pace of the season, you lie awake in your bed and count every second until dawn.

  I suffered through a long weekend of downtime, but it was pure agony to be away from the excitement. I joined up with my mom and dad and the main campaign on a swing through Colorado, then my bus-mates and I spun off to Nevada for two days of our own events, where glamorous Linda Ramone, the widow of singer Johnny Ramone, met up with us in Las Vegas. After a day of campaigning, Josh, Shannon, Frank, and I went on the Big Shot ride at the Stratosphere. I still have the picture of us in my apartment.

  LIKE ALL BIG MEDIA EVENTS—LIKE THE OLYMPICS—there is a lot of attention leading up to election day. While the news attention had been pretty intense for the last two months, now, suddenly, the media was preoccupied with everything about the campaign and everywhere we went. It was like the way some people watch a football game only in the last quarter or the Indy 500 for just the last twenty laps.

  Somebody—I’m not sure who—had the brilliant idea that we should milk this media focus as much as possible. On the day before the election, rather than having the campaign hit two states, like morning events in Ohio and an afternoon rally in Arizona, it was decided that Dad should go to seven cities in twenty-four hours.

  When I first heard about this plan, I thought it was some kind of a joke.

  Seven cities. It’s hard to communicate what this means, in terms of logistics. My dad and mom. The campaign staff, the media traveling with us. Seven arrivals. Seven airports. Seven venues. Seven flights. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This was supposed to be a brilliant way to make a final push of momentum.

  But let’s talk about the psychological condition of the staff by that point. For the last month, everybody had been getting by on three or four hours of sleep. Day after day, they were up, down, rallying, up, down, rallying. Just hearing the words bag call alone was a form of torture. Add to this, a diet of Coke, Snickers bars, and ramen Cup Noodles, and you can imagine how pleasant everybody was.

  As for me, I was numb—almost disconnected from my body. My mind was saying one thing and my body was up to something completely different. It was like jet lag. But since it was the last twenty-four hours of my dad’s campaign, I signed up for the seven-city tour: Tampa, Blountville, Moon Township, Indianapolis, Roswell, Henderson, and Prescott.

  It sounded brutal.

  It sounded excruciating.

  But I didn’t want to miss it for the world.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE, WE HAD ARRIVED INCREDIBLY LATE into Miami for a giant final rally at one in the morning. An entire arena was filled up with people singing, dancing, and applauding for my dad. There was so much energy and spirit and passion in the air that, while waiting for my dad to appear onstage, people were doing conga lines in the field and along the aisles.

  It was three in the morning before we got back to our hotel that night—or later—and even though I was zombie-tired, I was too jazzed up to sleep. It was a common problem for everybody on the campaign. In order to stay awake for late night rallies, you’d down caffeine. But when it was over, you couldn’t sleep.

  I couldn’t unwind, and when I did, I thought about the conga lines and the cheering. The rally had been incredible, and I could tell by the way Dad gave his speech that he was feeling energized and upbeat. But the plans for the next forty-eight hours were daunting. If my mind had remained focused on just this, I would have been okay.

  But instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about how the campaign was almost over. And as much as I wanted it to be over, I couldn’t imagine it. The campaign was my whole life. Or, I mean, I could barely remember what my life had been like before. College was a vague memory, like it had happened to somebody else.

  I was caught up in something, and fired up, in a way I had never been. I had fallen in love with politics, the day-to-day logistics of a campaign as well as the philosophical battles and complicated issues that were hard to talk about. I even loved the inner-office dramas, bag calls, and excruciating hours as much as the roar of the crowds and roller coaster.

  Maybe it was a form of Stockholm Syndrome, but I was scared to have it end. I knew how much I’d miss the whole thing. And while a part of me wanted it to be over, so I could wash myself completely of the experience, I was also beginning to see that the last year had been impossibly beautiful and moving and difficult and some of the scars I had might never heal.

  And what if we won? We were going to win, I told myself, but that scared me too. Was I really ready? If I kept falling apart during a national election, how could I handle being a First Daughter?


  And if we lost? You weren’t supposed to think that way. You were supposed to stay positive, and energized, and confident. Deep down, I heard only whispers of doubt. It was easy to ignore them.

  Mostly I was anxious, so anxious. “I am never going to be able to sleep!” I yelled out. “All I want is some sleep!”

  I’m very anti-drug and never take them but over the summer, a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, had given me some Xanax pills in an envelope with the words IN CASE OF EMERGENCY written in red marker. They were pills for anxiety, she said. While I appreciated the gesture, I insisted that I would never take anything like that.

  But now I was fishing them out. It seemed as good a time as there would ever be. They worked instantly—but maybe that was all in my mind. I mean, literally within minutes of gulping down the pills with water, I was knocked out like a corpse, still in my clothes and makeup from the rally.

  Bag call came three hours later, at six in the morning. Oh man. I was zonked. I would have been in full body pain if I’d actually been able to feel anything.

  I struggled out of bed and groggily took a shower. Somehow I managed to put on a pair of tights and a stretchy jersey dress. It was the only thing left in my wardrobe that fit. I wasn’t just heavier, I was bloated. My hands were so swollen that my rings had stopped fitting.

  Josh came into the room to fix my hair. Sitting up in a chair, while he worked on it, I passed out cold—doubled over with my head down. He let me sleep while he stepped outside on the balcony to have a cigarette, but wound up locking himself out. No matter how hard he banged on the door, I never woke up. And eventually Heather and Shannon had to rescue him.

  I don’t remember getting my hair done, to be honest. Nor do I remember getting in the van to the airport. Getting on the airplane is also a big blur, but Shannon and Josh say they had to walk me down the aisle while holding on to my shoulders. When my shoes flew off my feet, they had to scramble to find them.

  Once in my seat, located in the media section of the plane, I promptly passed out.

  This is where I want to say a big THANK YOU to the media, after all the bashing that they’ve taken in this book, because nobody on that plane wrote about—or even seemed to care—that I was drugged unconscious after my first, and very pathetic, foray into the prescription drug world. (Later on, I heard that Cynthia McFadden had pulled aside a campaign staff member after seeing me and had said, “I understand pharmaceuticals are involved.” So I want to give her a special shout-out for not putting it on Nightline.) How much the other reporters saw, or actually knew but kept to themselves, I don’t know. But whatever leniency I was granted, I want to say that I appreciate every bit of it.

  I also want to say a big THANK YOU to Melissa, who threw a blanket over my head when the plane landed at its first stop and members of the media shuffled passed me. Her fear was that somebody would take pictures.

  Melissa is a genius, just in case I haven’t given you that impression yet.

  Under my blanket, I slept through the first three rallies of election day. But after that, my friends began to worry that I might be comatose.

  Somebody called Dr. Harper, a physician who was traveling with the campaign and a longtime and very close family friend—a wonderful and very serious man whom I have known since I was a child. I was barely conscious, but just enough to make it one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. “It’s the last day of my dad’s campaign and I can’t move my legs. Am I going to be okay, Dr. Harper?”

  He determined that I would be fine, as long as I didn’t take anything more. This was especially good news because it meant that my mother and father, who were traveling in the far front of the plane—and had enough things on their minds that day—didn’t need to be informed of my condition. Actually, to this day I don’t believe that my dad has been told about what my friends would later refer to as my “Lohan Moment.” Until now. (Hi, Dad. I love you.)

  By the time our plane got to Indianapolis, our fourth stop, I was coming alive again. I pulled myself together enough to attend the rally, which began at two o’clock. But when I came onstage with Dad, I was still woozy and dreamy-feeling, and remember looking out to the crowd and thinking, Wow, so many nice older faces! And how happy they look! This seemed like a wonderful sign—the fulfillment of brilliant campaign strategy. Older people vote in higher numbers, and tomorrow I imagined that all those great oldsters around the country would be getting up at the crack of dawn and flooding into voting booths to cast their ballot for Dad. There was no way we could lose.

  I am an eternal optimist. Did I mention that? And I couldn’t wait to see Mr. MIT proved wrong. Election day was just hours away and I was utterly sure we could win.

  MY DAD’S SPEECHES ON THE LAST DAY HAD SO MUCH passion and love in them. He always speaks with his heart, and that day, it really came across. My favorite part of the speech was the final line—“We’re Americans, and we fight! Never surrender! Never give up!” Music would play, either Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” or “Life Is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane. I still have a hard time listening to those songs even now.

  There is a line from “Life Is a Highway” that I love: “Through all these cities and all these towns. It’s in my blood and it’s all around. I love you now and I loved you then.” And Tom Cochrane screams, “Just tell them we’re survivors!”

  That was exactly how I felt. I loved my father as the candidate back in 2000 and I loved him that much more in 2008. I wanted to scream at the cynics and the people with their Hope and Change T-shirts. We were survivors! This fight wasn’t over—and the road didn’t end here.

  WE FLEW AROUND THAT DAY IN THREE PRIVATELY CHARTERED airplanes. The conditions were similar to the three buses that were used on the ground. There was a very nice, very large 737, where my mom and dad sat, as well as the Groomsmen and other important staff and media. A second 747, also very nice, was for the press and other staff.

  And then, there was a third plane. It was a much smaller puddle-jumper—smellier, older, and skinny to the point of being tubular. This was no-man’s-land, the Island of Misfit Toys in the air. The sound guys and boom operators were assigned this plane, and other out-of-the-loop techies. There were journalists from unknown publications, or journalists who had been unfairly negative, taken potshots, had interrupted at press conferences, or were just unpopular and irritating to be around.

  It shouldn’t be a huge surprise where I wound up, except Mr. Burns had nothing to do with it.

  I asked to be there.

  That’s right. I begged for that third plane. After being revived in the back of the first plane, I was going crazy listening to journalists and staffers sitting all around me and talking about poll numbers, what the Obama campaign was doing (only two rallies that day), and complaining endlessly about anything and everything. I wanted to get away from the know-it-all vibe.

  Ahhh, the crummy third plane. It was small and cramped and the toilet smelled really bad and only worked half the time. When it was broken it made that annoying continual flushing sound. None of that mattered.

  It was a paradise to me. It was quieter and my fellow travelers weren’t drunk on power. They were laid-back and fun-loving and had the best “on the road” stories. One cameraman told me all about his former life as a Chippendale’s dancer. This was stuff you don’t get from Wall Street Journal reporters, believe me.

  But with three more cities, and three more rallies to go, I was exhausted. At one point, while standing in line to get back on the plane, I asked Anna Marie Cox, a Time magazine blogger, if it was normal to do this many events on the last day. “No, Meghan, it’s not!” she answered.

  It reminded me of the fairy tale “The Red Shoes,” where the girl puts on the magic red ballet slippers to dance, but then realizes she can’t stop dancing—and eventually dances herself to death. It was a morbid vision, but suddenly it was all that I could think about. I was wearing campaign shoes that were making me walk, and walk, a
nd walk. They were making me stand, and stand, and stand. Wave and wave and wave. It felt like it would never end.

  Chapter 21

  Election Day

  This is what I remember about election day: I woke up in my parents’ guest apartment in Phoenix with no memory of how I got there.

  It was afternoon already. I had missed the entire morning of media craze. Shannon and Heather were hanging out, waiting for me to wake up, and John King’s face was on CNN. He was doing his bizarre screen moves, when he touches his big magic screen and zeros in on certain counties and states and exit polls.

  I took a shower and picked out a dress to wear. Trying to imagine what kind of night was ahead, I decided to wear something celebratory and fun—that way I’d be dressing for the occasion that I hoped for, not necessarily the one I’d get. It wasn’t a hard decision. The one true constant of my clothing choices for the campaign was something glittery, something with sequins. Long ago I had decided it was always better to dress up than down. And there was no way on a night this big and important that I was going to wear a suit.

  We could still win, couldn’t we?

  Couldn’t we?

  The dress was so beautiful—knee-length, gold and glittery with sequins everywhere and a gold bow across the waist. It was probably more acceptable for a night on the town in Vegas than election night but it was just what I needed. Josh helped me get my hair in a very curly, extravagant updo.

  I decided to walk upstairs by myself to say hello to everyone in my parents’ apartment. I wanted to see my dad and wish everybody good luck. I assumed that we had a very long night ahead of us. Like I’ve said, election days and nights were boring and kind of dreadful, since the call usually wasn’t made until the middle of the night. And it wasn’t impossible that it could go on for days, like the presidential election of 2000, when the vote in Florida had to be recounted. I had a hunch that this time, it was going to be a close election too.