http://www.wisn.com/politics/15782578/detail.html
April 3, 2008
Wife’s Beer Fortune, McCain’s Career Tied
John McCain Opts Out Of Beer Lobby Votes
The marriage of John and Cindy McCain has mixed business and politics
from the beginning, according to an expansive review by The Associated
Press of thousands of pages of campaign, personal finance, real estate
and property records nationwide.
As heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy
McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million, and
beverage industry analysts estimate Hensley's value at more than $250
million, with annual sales of $300 million or more.
Hensley describes itself as the third-largest Anheuser-Bush wholesaler
in the United States.
* Within a few years of marrying Cindy Hensley, the daughter of a
multimillionaire Anheuser-Busch distributor, John McCain won his first
election.
He was new to Arizona politics and fundraising in the 1982 House race,
and his campaign quickly fell into debt.
Personal money -- tens of thousands of dollars in loans to his
campaign from McCain bank accounts -- helped him survive.
* Anheuser-Busch's political action committee was among McCain's
earliest donors.
Cindy McCain's father, James Hensley, and other Hensley & Co.
executives gave so much the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain
to give some of it back.
McCain's campaign used Hensley office equipment such as computers and
copiers, and Cindy McCain personally paid some of the campaign's
bills.
* Hensley executives are among the Arizona senator's top career
givers.
The Anheuser-Busch PAC has given McCain's campaigns at least $19,500
over the years.
McCain's campaign fundraisers include Robert Delgado, Hensley's
president and chief executive officer;
Andrew McCain, the company's chief financial officer and John McCain's
stepson from his first marriage, to Carol Shepp;
and August Busch III, chairman of Anheuser-Busch's executive
committee.
Anheuser-Busch in 2006 gave $25,000 to the International Republican
Institute, a pro-democracy group chaired by McCain.
The National Beer Wholesalers Association political action committee
doles out millions of dollars to Democratic and Republican
congressional candidates each election.
John McCain's campaigns have received at least $26,000 from it over
the years.
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Just call him Beer Boy McCain
Harry
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