Meghan McCain is not Chelsea Clinton

But then Meghan has been around this block before, and she chooses to ignore the bad vibes. "I can't read things that are mean to me or mean to my family," she says. Even before puberty, she was thrust in front of a camera at the 1996 Republican National Convention, in an American flag print outfit that she disapproves of to this day. In 2000, when her father ran an insurgent Republican primary campaign, the prospect of her having a hypothetical abortion became the subject of national political chatter. "It's the really sick part of politics," Meghan explains. "Everybody Googles everybody when they go on a date with them. I got set up with a guy a few years ago. He was like, 'Is it really true that people asked about your hypothetical abortion?' I was like, this is a fun date."

The idea for the blog began last summer, after Meghan graduated Columbia with a degree in Art History and internships at Newsweek and "Saturday Night Live" under her belt. Her younger brother Jimmy, 19, had enlisted in the Marine Corps and was preparing to ship overseas. Her brother Jack, 21, was about to enter his junior year at the Naval Academy, and her little sister Bridget, 16, was still in high school in Arizona. Her three older siblings, from her father's first marriage, all had school, jobs and family to occupy them. She alone wanted to find a way to spend her time on her father's campaign, but she wanted to do it on her own terms.

"I knew I wanted to help out, but I just didn't know what to do," she remembers. So, with Haven, she started reading old campaign books. She read the fictional "Primary Colors," the non-fiction but drug-enhanced "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72." They watched "Journeys With George," Alexandra Pelosi's documentary of the 2000 Bush campaign. By September, the idea of a blog had started to congeal. "She did not want it to be an extension of the campaign," remembers Cindy McCain, the candidate's wife and Meghan's mother. But that was alright. "The only message that I have ever encouraged any of my children to listen to and live by is just be yourself," says Cindy. "John's maverick attitude is very much what Meghan is about also."

And so the project was green-lighted, and the traveling McCain campaign staff was told to incorporate a traveling troupe of as many as four young women on the road, with near-total access to the candidate. Editing for the site is done remotely, by a former McCain staffer who does not currently work on the campaign. But when Meghan speaks to the press, as in this article, a campaign minder tags along.

"Very heavy," deadpans father McCain, 71, when asked what he thinks of the blog. He then shoots a knowing look to his spokeswoman. "Some of it is hard for me to understand. A lot of heavy issues, you know." But does he approve of his daughter showing off her tattoo and boasting about her taste for Tom Waits? "She's having fun," he continues. "I want her to enjoy the campaign. It's once in a lifetime. And then I want her to get a job."

Cindy McCain said she wanted to make sure that Meghan was ready for the flak that might come. "The only thing that was ever discussed with Meghan," she says, "was making sure that she understood by upping her public profile she was upping herself as a target."

Back at the MTV forum, she does not seem to be worrying about such things. Just a few days earlier, she had done a standup interview with Sway, a dreadlocked MTV news correspondent, in which she talked about how much Red Bull she drank. "It can get really tense. It's so serious all the time. The sky is always falling," she said about the professional reporters and staffers on the campaign. Now backstage, she races around, all-access pass dangling, chatting up the crowd and setting up shots with her camera ladies. MTV correspondent Gideon Yago stops to chat with her. John Norris, MTV's ageless newsman in tight jeans and blond curls, does a standup with her. Meghan McCain is having fun, with just weeks to go before Iowa and New Hampshire. She is not sure if it will help her father win the election.

"One thing I was trying to do is show that I have my own personality, and I am real. And I think people respond to authenticity," she says, reciting the McCain family motto. "People come up to me all the time and say, 'I love your blog.' So I don't know if it is influencing voters, but it is influencing people."

This sort of sentiment is heresy in a multimillion dollar presidential campaign. Voters, in the end, are the only thing that matters. But then Meghan is not the candidate. She is just the candidate's daughter, and she is trying to figure out for herself what that means.

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)