Cindy McCain: compassionate (about migraines) conservative

by David Safier
How typically conservative is this?

Cindy McCain, wife of U.S. Senator John McCain, today announced she would work to raise awareness of migraine among the public and health professionals and pledged to take her message to leaders in Washington to increase funding for research into migraines, a condition that affects some 36 million Americans.

How is that typically conservative, you might ask? Here's the answer.

Mrs. McCain recently revealed publicly that she has suffered severe migraine attacks for the last 15 years.

Bill Clinton famously said, "I feel your pain." It's a typically bleeding-heart-liberal statement. Cindy just said, "I feel my own pain, so I want all of you to spend time and government money to make my pain go away. Your pain? Eh, not so important." A typically conservative sentiment.

I shouldn't be too harsh, though. Conservatives also feel the pain of their spouses, children and close relatives.

Joe Conason gives examples. Nancy Reagan got religion about stem cell research when she saw her husband slipping ever deeper into his Alzheimer's disease. When she was first lady? Didn't seem so important then. New Mexico's Pete Domenici became a mental health care advocate when his daughter showed increasing signs of schizophrenia. He worked for mental-health insurance parity. Pete wasn't known as a crusader for health care reform, but when tragedy struck his family, this issue became the exception. It required government regulation.

Imagine if, during the presidential campaign, a Democrat had said, I understand what John McCain suffered as a prisoner of war, because I've been sick a lot. Republicans would have said a firing squad is too kind a punishment for the unpatriotic traitor. Only torture would do.

Here's what Cindy said recently in an interview with People magazine:

[Cindy] says one of her first challenges was finding the words to describe how painful the headaches can be. When she first told her husband, a former POW during the Vietnam War, she used a word she knew he would understand.

"Torture," she says. "Being tied to a chair for four days. I can't imagine how unbearable that pain must have been, but yeah, I can, because a migraine may come close."

Conason suggested, the only way to get Republicans in Congress to support health care reform is to make it personal. Maybe if we cut off their health care and members of their families have preexisting conditions that make them uninsurable, that would do the trick. Sounds cruel, I know, but it might make a light go on in their thick, selfish skulls.