Of course, no one in the Grand Canyon State who spoke to us wants to go on record discussing what will happen when the ailing McCain no longer holds his seat. But those who did, agree almost unanimously, Cindy McCain following John in the Senate through appointment by Gov. Doug Ducey, R-Ariz., is a near certainty.

“I’ve always assumed that was the arrangement,” said a friend of the McCain family since John’s 1973 return from captivity in Vietnam.

A former Republican senator who served with McCain agreed:

“I don’t know if this [succession] has been formalized, but that’s what people who know John tell me.”