When we win

You don’t want to miss Ariel Levy’s New Yorker profile of Cindy McCain:

When I travelled with the campaign in late spring, I asked the McCains, who were seated on the curved banquette at the back of the Straight Talk Express, how they imagined Cindy’s role as First Lady might affect her humanitarian work.

“I think some of her travels might be curtailed,” Senator McCain, who was wearing a blue Navy baseball cap, replied. “She’s been to Cambodia, where land mines are very dangerous, and no one knows exactly where they are, so that may be a little bit of a downside of her involvement.”

Staring into the middle distance, as she often does, Cindy McCain proceeded to contradict her husband. “What I tell everyone is, regardless of whether we win or lose, I will continue to do what I do because it’s so important to be an example,” she said firmly. “To my own children, and also for other kids in the community. Regardless of whether we win or lose.”

“Stop saying that,” John McCain interrupted.

“Say ‘when we win,’ ” Janet Huckabee instructed. She and her husband, the former Arkansas governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, were travelling with the campaign that day.

Cindy McCain gave a flicker of a smirk. “When we win,” she said. And she didn’t say anything more.