Meghan McCain, daughter of 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, has a tell-all book out entitled Dirty Sexy Politics. In it she describes her experiences campaigning with and blogging about her dad. The book is one third chronicle of the lives of campaign children, one part a picture inside the campaign and one third angst: clothes, make up, hair, appearance, mean blog comments, unflattering media coverage. There’s a lot of crying involved. Oh, and “crazy sex,” which McCain describes as, “sex with somebody who is extremely bad for you. Somebody you probably don’t even like that much. But on the road, things have a way of changing.” McCain cites numerous examples of such transgressions – she says she did not partake herself – though she’s changed most of the names to protect “the identities of a few campaign staffers and members of the media about whom I had bad things to say.” She’s sure to note early on that she was very young – 23, 24 at the time – and so made some childish mistakes.
Youth can, perhaps, justify some of the sillier misdemeanors in the book. Like when Meghan and her two cohorts (she has a staff of three for her blog that she paid for using money her grandfather left her) place plastic bugs all over speechwriter Mark Salter, photograph him and then post the photo online. Or the fit she threw, screaming “Screw you!” at campaign staffers, when her parents (wisely) didn’t inform her of the vice presidential choice before it hit the news.
Other transgressions garner somewhat less empathy for youthful indiscretions. For example, she writes about stealing Romney lawn signs on New Hampshire primary day and getting caught by an upstanding citizen. Her solution? She speeds her way from the scene and coerces her mother’s hairstylist, who looks like her, to go back and wait for the State Troopers. The police never showed up.
Stealing campaign signs is technically illegal, but I never thought anyone would enforce this. Nor did I expect we’d get caught. But just as we had pulled over and I had shoved a ton of Romney signs into our trunk, another car pulled up and blocked us. A super-dorky guy in a suit leaped out of his car. He was pissed as hell.
“What campaign are you with?” he yelled.
“Giuliani,” we said.
He pulled out a notepad and proceeded to take down our license plate number This is when I started freaking out. “MCCAIN DAUGHTER ARRESTED” was the headline I saw in my head.
Even less appealing? When, the day after the election, she’s pulled over for speeding in Arizona.
