Radar introduces you to the next president's relatives

By now, there's no way you haven't soaked up the life stories of this year's presumptive presidential nominees. There's Barack Obama, the multiracial child of a Kansan mother and a Kenyan father who shocked the world with his improbable rise to the top spot in the Democratic party. Then there's John McCain, the war hero who endured five years of torture as a prisoner of war and then became a "maverick" Republican senator. During this entire bruising, ongoing election season, these two tales have been repeated incessantly. Yet for all we know about the candidates, we know precious little about their immediate and extended families. What do their brothers and sisters do? Who are their children? Perhaps most pressing, do they get along with their mothers-in-law? Let's take a look at these two tribes. Remember, you're going to be stuck with one of them for the next four years.

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BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, JR.

Wife: Michelle Obama
Born Michelle Robinson on January 17, 1964, Barack Obama's wife comes from humble beginnings. Raised in a one-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Shore by a homemaker mother and a city pump-operator father, she graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1985, and earned her law degree from Harvard in 1988. Following graduation, she accepted a job at Sidley Austin, a prestigious downtown Chicago law firm. In 1989, Michelle was asked to mentor the firm's only other African American, a summer associate by the name of Barack Obama, who had been only one year behind her at Harvard, but whom she had never met.

In 1991, she left the firm to work for Chicago mayor Richard Daley. She and Obama were married in October 1992. Michelle Obama has held a number of high-ranking public service jobs, most recently as a senior official in the University of Chicago Hospitals system, which earned her a reported salary of nearly $275,000 a year. In 1998, she gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Malia. Daughter Natasha, nicknamed Sasha, followed in 2001. Once her husband began campaigning in earnest for the presidency, Michelle started to scale back her professional duties, and eventually left her post at the University of Chicago Hospitals to help him get elected.

Daughters: Malia and Sasha Obama, ages 10 and 7, respectively
The Obamas have largely kept their two daughters out of the political spotlight, stating a desire to keep their lives as normal as possible. In the earlier days of the campaign, this required that Michelle's schedule allow her to fix breakfast in the morning and tuck them into bed at night. When both parents are on the road stumping, Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson, watches over them in the Obamas' Chicago home. Barack has characterized Malia as "wise and thoughtful" and Sasha as "the comedian."

Though the Obama girls are shielded from the rigors of campaigning, they are not entirely unaware of what is happening around their family. Last summer, when the "Obama Girl" videos started making their way around the Web and on the news, a then six-year-old Sasha Obama reportedly asked her mom about it, stating, "Daddy already has a wife." At the same time, Malia Obama patiently waited for her father's schedule to allow them to finish the last Harry Potter book together. She was quoted in a New York Times article as telling her mother, "When Daddy has time, we'll finish. This isn't a race." At the end of Barack Obama's campaign, however, they do have a prize for their patience. Win or lose, the girls have been promised a dog.

Mother: Stanley "Ann" Dunham
Born in Kansas, Barack Obama's mother always told friends she was named Stanley because her dad wanted a boy. As a child, her family moved frequently—before she was 18, the Dunhams moved more than five times, living in states including California, Texas, and Washington. At the age of 18, she enrolled in the University of Hawaii to study anthropology. It was there that she meet and married a young, charismatic Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. In his book Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama states that both sets of grandparents opposed the marriage, with his paternal grandfather stating that he didn't want the "Obama blood sullied by a white woman." The marriage took place in February 1961, when Ann was three months pregnant with Barack, who was born in August.

The marriage lasted only three years, dissolving after Obama, Sr., left to pursue graduate studies at Harvard. After they divorced, Dunham worked to make ends meet, relying on food stamps and her parents to keep her family together. In 1967, she married an Indonesian man named Lolo Soetoro and moved the family to Indonesia, where she gave birth to a daughter, Maya. While there, Dunham would wake a young Obama up as early as 4 a.m. to give him extra lessons, scared he wasn't being challenged enough at school, and made him read books about the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr., and listen to recordings by Mahalia Jackson to keep him connected to his black roots.

When Obama was 10, Dunham allowed him to move back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents and attend Punahou, an elite prep school. She joined him a year later, in 1972. She and Soetoro did not live together again, but did not divorce until 1980.

Dunham pursued a Ph.D. and did her fieldwork back in Indonesia, leaving Obama and his sister with her parents. She died in 1995 from ovarian cancer, but is largely credited with helping build the microfinance program in Indonesia through her anthropological research on how people worked. Obama has often spoken about what a tremendous influence she was on his life.

Father: Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
In September 1959, 23-year-old Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was one of 81 young Kenyans sent to America as part of a scholarship program to give Kenyans an American university education with which they could return to their country and assume key roles in a nation just assuming its independence. The elder Obama, from Alego, in Siaya District, Nyanza Provence, was reportedly charming, with a deep voice and a charismatic personality. His childhood was spent herding goats and attending school in a tin-roof shack.

Obama, Sr., left his wife and young son to attend graduate school at Harvard and study economics. Following that, he returned to Kenya and worked for the Ministry of Planning. Barack saw his father only once more during his lifetime, in 1971, when the elder Obama visited Hawaii. Obama, Sr., went on to have a number of children with at least four additional wives. He was killed in a car accident in 1982.

Stepfather: Lolo Soetoro
Reportedly full of good manners and grace, Lolo Soetoro married Ann Dunham in 1967 after they met at the University of Hawaii. An Indonesian oil manager, he moved his new wife and stepson to his native country, where he and Dunham gradually began growing apart as he became more interested in Western culture and she in Indonesian. Obama credits Soetoro with sharing an exotic side of life with him, including ideas such as men absorbing the power of the animals they ate, like dog or snake. Soetero subscribed to a form of Islam that, Obama explained, made "room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths." Lolo Soetoro stayed in Indonesia after he and Ann divorced, and died in 1987 from a liver ailment.

Half Sister: Maya Soetoro-Ng
Obama's half sister, Soetoro-Ng, is a teacher and professor who lives and works in Hawaii. Nine years younger than Obama, she credits him with taking a fatherly role with her after the divorce of her parents. It was he, she says, who brought her to look at colleges and scolded her when he thought she could be doing better in school. Soetoro-Ng has been active on the campaign trail, giving speeches around the country and doing everything from defending her brother against rumors about his religion to speaking about the influence of their mother on his life. She is married to Canadian-born Konrad Ng, has a three-year-old daughter, Suhalia, and resides in Oahu.

Additional Half Brothers and Sisters
After he moved back to Kenya, Barack Obama, Sr., married multiple times, and from those marriages, Barack Obama has one half sister, Auma, who now lives in Great Britain and works as a social worker running a women's trust. Though she and Obama did not meet until they were in their twenties, Obama has written that they instantly clicked and have remained close. Half brothers include Abo, whom Obama met for the first time in 1987; Abongo, aka Roy, an accountant who inherited his father's drinking habit, but has now embraced Islam and his African heritage; Bernard, who may or may not be Barack's blood relative, as his mother, Kezia, was also seeing another man around the time she got pregnant, but whom Barack Obama, Sr., treated as a son just the same; George, whom Obama also met for the first time in 1987; David, killed in a motorcycle accident; and Mark, who studied physics at Berkeley.

Brother-in-law: Craig Robinson
An Ivy League basketball standout, Craig Robinson paved the way for his sister at Princeton, graduating in 1983 with a degree in sociology. He also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is considered one of the top players in Ivy League basketball history, ranking fourth on Princeton's all-time scoring list and leading the Ivy League in field goal percentages in both 1982 and 1983. Robinson was also the league's first two-time honoree as Ivy League Player of the Year, sharing the honor in 1982 and the sole winner 1983. After stints in the European basketball league and banking, he is now the head basketball coach at Oregon State University, following a successful stint at Brown.

Maternal Grandparents: Madelyn Lee Payne and Stanley Armour Dunham
Barack Obama's maternal grandparents, Madelyn Lee Payne, whom he called Toot, and Stanley Armour Dunham, whom he called Gramps, were secretly married as juniors in high school and lived in separate households, not revealing their married status to Payne's parents until her senior graduation day in June 1940. Stanley Dunham was a restless furniture salesman who moved his family all over the country during his daughter's youth. He worked on oil rigs during much the of Depression, and later joined the army following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Described as having an "itch for adventure," Dunham had a rough start in life, finding his mother's body at the age of eight after she committed suicide. He died in 1992 at age 73.

After her husband joined the army, Payne became one of World War II America's many "Rosie the Riveters," working in a B-29 bomber factory in Wichita. A large presence in Obama's life, she largely raised him and his sister while their mother lived in Indonesia. A successful businesswoman, Payne served as vice president of a Hawaiian bank. It was her salary, along with scholarships, that allowed Obama to attend Hawaii's prestigious Punahou School. Now 86, Toot lives in Honolulu.

Paternal Grandparents: Hussein and Akumu Onyango Obama
In Kenya, Hussein Obama was a tribal elder, prominent farmer, and herbalist. He was such a strict disciplinarian that his grandchildren nicknamed him The Terror. Hussein worked for Kenya's white oppressors—among his positions, he served as a cook to a British officer during World War II. He was respectful, but never tolerated abuse, once beating a white employer who tried to cane him. He didn't smoke or drink, but liked to dance, visiting Nairobi's dance halls once a month.

Akumu was driven to leave Hussein Obama because of his harsh, abusive manner and constant demands for a spotless house. She was his second wife, and little is known about her life after she left. The smiling Kenyan woman often seen in support of Barack overseas is actually Hussein Obama's third wife, Sarah. Though she is technically his step-grandmother, Barack Obama, Jr., considers her his grandmother, since she had a large role in raising his father.

In-laws: Marian Shields and Fraser Robinson
Married in 1960, Fraser and Marian Robinson both grew up on Chicago's South Side. Robinson was a city water-pump operator and onetime boxer who dropped out of college so that his family could afford to send his younger brother to school. At the age of 30, Fraser was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and became partially handicapped, but managed to get a job at the city water filtration plant. Though he often had to rely on a walker to get him there, Michelle Obama recalls that he was never late and never complained. Marian Robinson stayed home with the couple's two children (Michelle and her brother, Craig), and ran a tight household in which she strongly emphasized education, fostered independence of thought, and limited the hours the children could watch television. On their single salary, Fraser Robinson provided for his family, sending both Michelle and her brother, Craig, to Princeton. Fraser Robinson died in 1991, but Marian is still an active part of her daughter's life, often babysitting for her grandchildren while her daughter and son-in-law are on the road.

JOHN SIDNEY MCCAIN, III

(Photo: Getty Images)

Wife: Cindy Lou Hensley McCain
McCain's second wife, Cindy Lou Hensley McCain, was born in Arizona to James and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley, founders of Hensley & Co., one of the nation's largest Anheuser-Busch distributors. A former rodeo queen, Cindy received her bachelor's degree in education and master's degree in special education from the University of Southern California. At USC, she was a cheerleader and member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, and, after graduation, began a career in special education at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Arizona.

Cindy met John McCain while he was still married to his first wife, Carol. They began an affair, and married a month after McCain ended his marriage to Carol in April 1980. Her father's local business connections and her own considerable wealth helped John McCain win a bid for Congress in 1982. After several miscarriages, she gave birth to her three biological children, Meghan, John "Jack" Sidney VI, and James, known as Jimmy. Cindy is also stepmother to Sidney, Andy, and Doug, McCain's children by his first wife, Carol, and Bridget, whom she adopted from a Bangladeshi orphanage.

Cindy McCain faced scandal in the early 1990s when it was revealed that she stole painkillers from the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT), a now-defunct nonprofit organization that she founded in 1988 after being inspired to improve subpar medical facilities in third-world countries. The theft was prompted by her addiction to painkillers, which she developed following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs. In 1992, her parents staged an intervention and she received treatment.

In 2000, Cindy McCain became chair of Hensley & Co., following the death of her father. The $300 million operation provides her with a $400,000 salary and has contributed to her net worth of almost $100 million. With her children, she also owns a minority stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Brother: Joe McCain
A former newspaper reporter, Joe McCain has chosen to stay largely out of the limelight during his brother's 2008 campaign. He left the Naval Academy after a year and spent a year on a battleship in Vietnam, but never saw combat. Instead, the former dinner-theater actor has created a presence on the Internet, where an e-mail to friends regarding anti-Semitism, inspired by a visit to Dachau, found its way onto several websites and is regarded as a thoughtful piece on the subject. He is currently doing research on a book, potentially about his father.

Sister: Sandy McCain Morgan
The oldest sister of John and Joe McCain, Sandy was subject to a small media firestorm that erupted in 2000 when George W. Bush's campaign launched an ad attack against her brother, saying he was indifferent to breast cancer research. In fact, Sandy had been diagnosed with the disease just two years earlier, beat it, and was in remission. At the time, Sandy said little and the Bush team rejected calls for an apology.

Daughter: Meghan McCain, 23
The 23-year-old Columbia University–educated eldest child of Cindy and John McCain has been a behind-the-scenes presence for her father on the campaign trail, keeping the online journal McCain Blogette with two friends as she travels around the country with her father. Loosely based on Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, the blog aims to gives readers a look at life on the road via videos and personal entries that focus on more than just politics, with Meghan detailing everything from what music is in her iPod to what brand of designer boots she is wearing. This September, she will also publish a children's picture book about her father. Meghan completed internships at both Newsweek and Saturday Night Live, loves Dita Von Teese and A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, and counts Knocked Up, Superbad, and The Big Lebowski among her favorite movies.

Son: John "Jack" Sidney McCain IV, 21
Named and nicknamed after his grandfather, Jack McCain followed in the family footsteps, becoming the fourth-generation McCain to attend the United States Naval Academy, where he is studying political science. Out of his class of nearly 1,100 students, Jack ranks at number 1,002, keeping pace with both his father's dismal final class ranking (894 out of his class of 899) and his grandfather's. However, this past semester, Jack achieved a 3.0 GPA. Recently crowned by jezebel.com as "totally hot," Jack likes Mexican food, racing cars, surfing, poetry, and cooking. Earlier this year, when his sister was ill, he temporarily took over blogging duties at McCain Blogette.

Son: James "Jimmy" McCain, 19
Named for John McCain's father-in-law, James "Jimmy" McCain was one of his father's best-kept campaign-trail secrets: After he had safely returned home in February of this year, it was revealed that he had served a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq. A marine lance corporal, Jimmy is known to be the most "happy-go-lucky" of the McCain clan. During his father's unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid, a Boston Globe reporter overheard a then 11-year-old Jimmy chasing older brother Jack and calling him a "pork-barrel spender," a deep insult in the McCain home. Jimmy is also a war buff who scouts for memorabilia on eBay.

Daughter: Bridget McCain, 16
Now a high school junior, Bridget McCain is the adopted Bangladeshi daughter of John and Cindy McCain. Rescued when she was three months old by Cindy McCain from an orphanage she was visiting with Mother Theresa, Bridget was once described by John McCain as the toughest of his four children. During the 2000 election, Bridget became the center of a smear campaign against McCain in South Carolina, in which anonymous pollsters called potential voters and asked if they'd be less likely to vote for McCain if he had fathered an illegitimate black child. Many voters at the time did not know that the girl was the legally adopted daughter of the senator. Karl Rove is widely believed to have orchestrated the campaign, which helped George W. Bush take the state and that year's Republican nomination. Bridget has largely remained off the campaign trail this election season and is no longer allowed to be interviewed.

Additional Children:
John McCain adopted two children born to his first wife, Carol. They are Doug McCain, 48, a pilot for American Airlines and a former navy pilot; Andy McCain, 45, vice president and CFO at Hensley & Co. Sidney McCain, 41, is McCain's biological daughter with Carol. She currently works in the music industry as the general manager for V2 Records.

Parents: Roberta Wright and Admiral John "Jack" S. McCain, Jr.
A former debutante, Roberta Wright McCain is the feisty matriarch of the McCain clan. Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Roberta eloped with then–navy ensign John S. McCain in Tijuana in 1933, when she was a 20-year-old student at USC. After graduating from the Naval Academy in 1931, Jack, as he liked to be called, held a string of positions in the navy, including commander of the USS Gunnell (1942–1944), chief of naval information (1962–63), and commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific (1968–72). It was during this last period that his son was taken prisoner in Vietnam. Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., retired from the navy in 1972 as a four-star admiral, and with his father, Admiral John S. McCain, Sr., became the only father-son duo to earn the rank of full admiral in the United States Navy. Jack died in 1981 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Roberta McCain has been largely out of sight during her son's second presidential bid, recently joking to the Los Angeles Times that her son's handlers had "muzzled" her due to some politically incorrect comments during his 2000 campaign. However, Roberta is an accomplished traveler, and last year, at the age of 95, was pulled over in Flagstaff, Arizona, for breaking the speed limit, driving at 112 miles per hour.

Maternal Grandparents: Archibald Wright and Myrtle Fletcher
John McCain's grandfather, Archibald Wright, was a Los Angeles oil wildcatter, born in Mississippi in 1875 and died in 1971. He had earned enough money in the oil business to be a stay-at-home dad who took his five children (including John McCain's mother, Roberta) on trips all over the United States, including the California coast, Mojave Desert, and the source of the Mississippi River. His grandmother, Myrtle Fletcher, was born in Texas in 1885 and died in 1972. Little can be found about her, besides the fact that she accompanied her family on these epic trips, mostly following by train when the family couldn't fit in one car, and usually with the Wright's oldest daughter and invalid brother. Internet searches do pull up theories that the Wrights avoided the social security system and state that no tax records exist for either Archibald or Myrtle, nor do their birth records. No news sites are able to verify this information online.

Paternal Grandparents: John S. McCain, Sr., and Katherine (also spelled Catherine) Davey Vaulx
John S. McCain, Sr., was born in Carroll County, Mississippi, the son of plantation owners. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1906, he went on to an illustrious career that included serving in the Pacific during World War II, being present at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri, and being on the Connecticut, part of Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet. During his naval career, John S. McCain, Sr., also commanded two naval air stations and the carrier USS Ranger, and was promoted to rear admiral in February 1941. In May 1942, he became the commander of all land-based naval aircraft in the South Pacific. The USS John McCain was named after both him and his son, John S. McCain, Jr., the only father-son duo in naval history to both achieve the rank of full admiral.

Not as much is known about Katherine (sometimes written as Catherine) Davey Vaulx, who was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, circa 1876. What is known is that she was a Greek and Latin teacher, six to eight years older than John McCain, Sr., (according to conflicting reports) when they married in 1909. She died in May 1959 in San Diego, and is buried next to her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.

In-laws: James Willis and Marguerite "Smitty" Johnson Hensley
James Hensley founded Hensley & Co. in 1955, helping it become the third-largest Anheuser-Busch distributor in the United States and one of the largest privately held companies in Arizona. Hensley was born in San Antonio, and with his brother, Eugene, worked briefly for a wealthy Arizona rancher before starting their first company, United Liquor. He served three years as an officer in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, then returned to work with his brother. Following trouble with the law due to falsifying liquor records and shady ties to organized crime after they purchased a racetrack, Hensley founded his namesake company. He died in Phoenix in 2000.

Marguerite "Smitty" Johnson was born in 1919 in Cairo, Illinois. She married James on March 29, 1945, in Memphis while he was on leave from the air force. Described in her obituary as "a strong woman, honest, plain-spoken, and blessed with great wit," she helped her husband grow Hensley & Co. with a behind-the-scenes role. It was Marguerite who discerned her daughter's addiction to painkillers, putting the wheels in motion for her recovery. She passed away in October 2006.