Looking increasing like the next First Lady of the United States of America, the lady who stands steadfastly at the side of Senator John McCain is no new comer to the world of high flying, buiness, politics and scandal.

Cindy McCain was born Cindy Lou Hensley in 1954 into an affluent business family in Phoenix, Arizona. Her parents, James and Marguerite Hensley founded Hensley & Company a brewery business, in 1955, and her family business and her other investments have long been the source of McCain's wealth making him the seventh-richest senator by net worth, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks money spent in political campaigns.

Cindy attended Madison Meadows Elementary and was a rodeo queen in 1968 and she went to Central High School in Phoenix where she graduated from in 1972 having been a cheerleader there.

Cindy took an early interest in the development and care of disabled children and she participated in a movement therapy pilot program that laid the way for a standard treatment for severely disabled children at which time she published the work Movement Therapy: A Possible Approach in 1978.

Turning down a position in the family business Cindy went on to train as special education teaching working with disabled children at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona. Hensley received her undergraduate degree in education and a masters in special education from the University of Southern California.

Cindy and John met in 1979 at a military function in Hawaii where he was serving as the Navy Liaison officer to the US Senate.

Although John was 18 years her senior, and already married to Carol, this did not prevent the pair showing a mutual interest in one another. With his current marriage, which had produced two adopted children and one biological child, in trouble, he divorced in April 1980 and married Cindy in May of the same year.

Cindy’s parent’s business and political contacts helped gain McCain a firm foothold into Arizona politics where she campaigned with her husband door-to-door during his successful first bid for U.S. Congress in 1982, with her wealth from an expired trust from her parents providing significant loans to the campaign.

The couple tried unsuccessfully for a long time to have children, and after several miscarriages Cindy conceived three children with husband McCain. The family stayed in Arizona; her parents lived across the street and helped her raise her children while her husband was frequently in Washington.

Following her own career, in 1988, Cindy founded the American Voluntary Medical Team that organized trips for doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel to provide emergency medical care to disaster-struck or war-torn third-world areas such as Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, Nicaragua, India, Bangladesh and El Salvador. She led 55 of these missions over the next seven years and also supplied treatment to poor sick children around the world through the American Voluntary Medical Team.

Cindy’s caring nature came through loud and clear when she visited a Mother Teresa orphanage in Bangladesh in 1991 when she returned home with two children, one whom she and John adopted and another she helped friends to adopt..

Following two spinal operations in 1989 Cindy found herself addicted to painkillers, coupled with the stress John had put her under by becoming embroiled in the Keating Five scandal of that time. Her addiction became so intense that she began stealing drugs from her own medical charity until her parents forced her to seek medical attention at a drug treatment facility as an outpatient and ended her three years of addiction.

Her spinal pain came to an abrupt conclusion in 1993 when she had a hysterectomy.

But her drug involvement problems still lingered when the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated her drug theft. Her activities violated federal statutes, so a federal investigation was conducted. McCain's defense team, led by a Washington lawyer who secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office that limited her punishment to financial restitution and enrollment in a diversion program, without anything being made public.

The problem escalated in 1994 when an employee she had fired filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against McCain, which he told her he would settle for $250,000. He was investigated for extortion and the this brought the matter to the attention to the Phoenix New Times who would have published the story had Cindy not taken matters into her own hands and publicly revealed her past addiction, stating she hoped it would give fellow drug addicts courage in their struggles.

A flurry of press attention followed, including charges by the fired employee that she had asked him to lie concerning her drug use when the McCain’s were applying to adopt their baby from Bangladesh.

A few weeks after her announcement, the Variety Club of Arizona canceled its Humanitarian of the Year award dinner in her honor citing poor ticket sales. In the end, both lawsuit and the extortion investigations against the employee were dropped and the AVMT concluded its activities in 1995.

Although Cindy’s public drug problems had made her suspicious of any involvement with the media she still managed to become active in her husband's unsuccessful campaign for President of the United States in 2000 which he lost to George W Bush.

Once again hers, and John’s, private lives came under the spotlight when smear tactics were used against John in the South Carolina primary in 2000, which included allegations against her adopted daughter Bridget.

Following the failed campaign attempt in 2000 and the death of her father, Cindy took up a position in her father’s business, and took an active interest in Operation Smile in 2001 taking parts in trips with it to Morocco, Vietnam, and India and now sits on its board of directors.

Cindy also joined the board of directors of CARE in 2005. She is on the board of the HALO Trust, and has visited operations to remove landmines in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, and Angola.

After suffering a near-fatal stroke in April 2004 undertook several months of physical therapy to overcome her leg and arm limitations and made a mostly full recovery but still suffers from some short-term memory loss and difficulties in writing.

Cindy has been a prominent supporter in her husband's presidential campaign during 2007 and 2008 in which he has competed against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. She has stated that the American public wants a First Lady of the United States who will tend toward a traditional role in that position.

ABB