THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE ARIZONA TIES; A Beer Baron and a Powerful
Publisher Put McCain on a Political Path
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
Published: February 21, 2000
When Senator John McCain of Arizona describes the people who shaped
his life, he invariably dwells on the influence of his father and
grandfather, both distinguished Navy admirals and larger-than-life
figures. Less widely known are the roles played by two other powerful
men in launching his political career.
Mr. McCain's father-in-law, a wealthy beer baron named James W.
Hensley, gave Mr. McCain his first job out of the Navy and helped
bankroll his crucial first race for Congress in 1982, enabling Mr.
McCain, a political newcomer, to outspend and defeat better-known
opponents.
Even today, Mr. McCain's position as one of the wealthiest members of
Congress is derived from his wife's share of her family's Anheuser-
Busch beer distributor****p here and extensive real estate investments
through the company, holdings worth more than $10 million.
In his rise to political influence, Mr. McCain, who had no ties to
Arizona until he married Cindy Hensley and moved here in 1981, also
won the critical blessing of the city's business establishment through
his close friend****p with another of the state's power brokers, Darrow
Tully, the publisher then of the state's dominant newspaper, The
Arizona Republic. ''Duke'' Tully led an ad hoc group of business
executives and self-appointed political kingmakers known as the
Phoenix 40, whose backing helped Mr. McCain in that first
Congressional race and assured his Senate victory four years later.
Bruce Merrill, a professor at Arizona State University, who conducted
polls for Mr. McCain's first Congressional race, said, ''In 1982, a
lot of party leaders felt John was an outsider and he won a narrow
victory largely because he had access to family resources and the
sup****t of The Arizona Republic.''
Today, Mr. McCain, 63, is running for the Republican presidential
nomination as a champion of campaign finance reform and an opponent of
special interests. Yet a look at his rapid ascension shows that his
early career was founded on special-interest money, and that he might
never have emerged from the competitive world of Arizona politics
without the steadfast backing of this city's political and business
establishment.
Many of those people have remained im****tant benefactors. Hensley
family members and employees have contributed more than $80,000 to Mr.
McCain's campaigns since 1982, according to federal election records,
and he has collected tens of thousands more from businesses in
Phoenix.
Despite his family's financial ties to the beer business, Mr. McCain
has not sup****ted the liquor industry in Congress and has publicly
excused himself from voting on measures affecting the business,
according to antiliquor groups.
The Family Beer Business
Mr. McCain had thought of going into politics before moving to
Arizona. In 1976, three years after his release from a North
Vietnamese prison, he briefly considered running for Congress from
Florida, where he was stationed with the Navy.
He was then transferred to Wa****ngton as the Navy's liaison to the
Senate, and his appetite for politics grew. He was a charming war
hero, and a skilled public speaker, and he also built up strong
political connections in Wa****ngton. Still, as a third-generation Navy
man, he had not lived in any one place for long, and he lacked a
political base.
That changed after he met Cindy Hensley, his second wife. Mr. McCain
went to work in public relations for Hensley & Company, his father-in-
law's beer distributor****p. It was his first job outside the Navy.
People who knew Mr. McCain then said the job was merely a means for
him to meet people in the state, and lay the groundwork for his
political career.
''Hensley had the Budweiser distributor****p for the entire state and
he didn't need any PR,'' said William Shover, a retired executive at
The Arizona Republic, who met Mr. McCain in those early days. ''They
created a job for him.''
Acquaintances describe Mr. Hensley as an astute businessman who never
sought the limelight even after he became one of Arizona's richest
men. Still, while he could give his only child's husband a job, he
could not give him entree into the political and business elite. The
liquor industry was never part of the civic hierarchy, and Mr.
Hensley's own past was not a ticket to the establishment.
Cont'd
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THE U.S. VETERAN DISPATCH
John McCain:
Unfit to serve as Commander-In-Chief
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan08/mccain_military_record.htm
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