the buzz log

The appearance of the entire McCain clan on the stage at the Republican National Convention last night electrified the Web. Before the evening was over, a massive number of people had turned to their computers to seek more on "mccain children," "mccain family," and "john mccain family pictures." Many people asked, "how many children does john mccain have?" The answer is seven, but it's a little confusing. Here's how it breaks down:

When John McCain married his first wife, Carol, he adopted her two sons: Doug, who is now 48, and Andy, 46. John and Carol then had a third child, Sidney, 41. After the couple divorced, John married Cindy. They had three children: Meghan, 23; Jack, 22; and Jimmy, 20. In 1993, the McCains adopted a little girl from an orphanage in Bangladesh. That's Bridget, 17, and she makes seven. As ABC said recently, "Navigating through the McCain family album might require a road map."

Map or no, this brood stirs up buzz. After Bridget's story aired last night, queries surged for "cleft palate," a deformity she suffered from as a child. Both Jack and Jimmy have drawn attention for their service in the U.S. military; Jack as midshipman in the Navy and Jimmy as a Marine. Meghan, the most vocal of the bunch, has published a children's book and maintains her Web profile with a blog about her father's campaign. The Washington Post recently called her "the gorgeous golden girl, the GOP's next Jenna."

And then there's the other golden girl—their mom. Over the past months, Cindy McCain has proved to be an enduring figure in Buzz. Her husband's poll numbers may spike and plunge; media perception of his campaign may ebb and flow, but no matter what, searchers and buzzers want more on the senator's wife from Arizona.

Before she even spoke into the microphone last night, queries were stirring about the "serene" and well-dressed figure. People wanted to know her biography; they wanted to see photos of her now and when she was young; they wanted to review what they'd heard of her struggles with a drug addiction. (According to Scripps, she "recovered from an addiction to painkillers after disc surgeries" in 1994.)

But most of all, folks wanted to know how old Cindy McCain is. Yeah, we know, it's not polite to ask a lady her age—but this is the Web, people. Queries like "how old is cindy mccain," "cindy mccain age," and, well, "cindy mccain plastic surgery" all leapt. We can't confirm anything about the latter, but we can tell you that the self-styled "Western conservative mother" is a surprising 54.

Finally, where would a family be without its matriarch? As last night made clear, John McCain has a close relationship with his mother, Roberta McCain. The 96-year-old was in attendance at the convention, looking proud of her son and even boasting in a video clip that he's a real "mama's boy." Though searches also rose for "admiral mccain" (that could be his father or his grandfather), it was McCain's mother who drew a 483% rise in queries.

Let the Palin family steal the media spotlight for now. It may very well be the extended McCain kin who produce the campaign's best buzz in the months to come.