Exclusive: The McCain Women Speak Out

Exclusive: McCain's wife, mother, daughter talk tonight on "Nightline."

ByABC News
October 29, 2007, 1:50 PM

Oct. 30, 2007 — -- In the 2008 presidential race, candidates' family members are playing a more pronounced role in their campaigns than ever before. No where is this more evident than aboard Sen. John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus where wife Cindy McCain, mother Roberta McCain and daughter Meghan McCain are regular and influential fixtures.

"Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden sat down with the McCain women in an exclusive interview and found out just how much of a role they play in the Arizona senator's campaign.

Cindy McCain is at the heart of her husband's campaign now, but when the senator approached her initially about running for president again, she was understandably reluctant.

"I said hell no. I just didn't think I had wide enough shoulders for this again and I really had to think long and hard," she said.

After thinking about her son Jimmy who is currently serving the military in Iraq she changed her mind, fearful of what she thought might happen if her husband didn't run.

"I realized I had to do everything I could to help get him elected. He's the only man that understands not only what it means to send young women and men into combat but more importantly how to bring them home with honor and dignity and victory."

With this motivation, she thrust herself into the campaign, serving as the Senator's's main confidante. While Cindy McCain says she is not involved in the mechanics of the campaign, she believes she is the only one who tells him the truth.

"I am the one person he can trust," she said, "and I'm the one person who will tell him in the end exactly what I think and what's wrong -- you know, he needs to hear that sometimes."

Senator McCain heard this frank viewpoint in the summer when his campaign was stalling. It was spending much more money than it was raising and Cindy McCain made her concerns about the bottom line known.

"I look at our campaign and I look at our campaign as a business, I run a business, I have a bottom line, you have to have a bottom line, and what I saw is something that wasn't meeting the bottom line," she said.