Best-Laid Plans—Until a Hurricane and Protests

First lady Laura Bush (r) and Cindy McCain take the stage to address the Republican National Convention Monday afternoon, Sept. 1, speaking about relief for Gulf Coast citizens affected by Hurricane Gustav. Photo by Mark T. Osler

Ohio delegate Jo Ann Davidson, chair of the committee on arrangements at the Republican convention, had practiced and practiced the speech she anticipated delivering on opening day. But then came Hurricane Gustav.

“The whole program was canceled,” she says, showing a roll-with-the-punches calm that well serves the chairman of the arrangements committee when all of her painstaking arrangements are blown away by a storm. Monday’s severely truncated session meant that Davidson’s speech would stay in her pocket.

She had planned to talk about the Republican convention of 1892. It, too, was held in the Twin Cities, and it was the first one at which women were seated and allowed to speak. They were pressing for voting rights. Judith Ellen Foster, chairman of the Woman’s National Republican Association, addressed the assembly, which included Therese A. Jenkins and Cora Carleton, alternate delegates from Wyoming. “We are here to help you and we are here to stay,” Foster declared.

Women have come a long way in the party since 1892-and since Davidson started stuffing envelopes in the 1960s. Having served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives for 20 years and started her own political consulting firm, Davidson now holds a high-ranking position at the convention. And of course, there’s a woman vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She’s a “great choice,” Davidson says.

In keeping with the theme, Davidson, 80, had also scheduled an address to a group of young women at an event sponsored by the Lifetime cable television network. She was planning to point out that while older women have broken down the doors that held them back professionally, it is now up to younger women to take advantage. But war protesters blocked the street leading to the venue, and her car couldn’t get through. She never got there.

Like a bit of a mother hen, Davidson is concerned about the thousands of staff members who worked so hard to prepare for the opening festivities and about the first-time delegates who may have given up their vacation time to attend the convention‹the experience of a lifetime for some of them. As for herself, Davidson skipped breakfast with her Ohio delegation compatriots to dash to the Xcel Energy Center to join party leaders and McCain campaign officials on a conference call that laid out the changed logistics for the press.

And by the time the evening came and first lady Laura Bush and Cindy McCain made appeals on behalf of Gustav’s victims, Davidson was sure the abbreviated session was a hit.

“We took care of business,” she says.