Jo Ann Davidson, co-chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaks on day 2 of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

It’s not all work and no play for Ohio Delegate Jo Ann Davidson. But play (and even meal) time is pretty hard to squeeze in between her duties as chairwoman of the committee on arrangements at the schedule-challenged Republican convention.

Tuesday, Davidson stopped by an Ohio delegation reception for a few hors d’oeuvres and managed to get to (but hardly eat at) a host committee luncheon with first lady Laura Bush.

“I had the opportunity to talk to her and got in the photo line,” Davidson says. She did get the coveted picture and was able to thank the first lady for coming.

While the Ohioan was in the lobby of her hotel earlier in the day, former presidential adviser Karl Rove blew in and stopped to peck her on the cheek. Davidson’s delegation is in a nice hotel, the Radisson Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, just across the bridge from St. Paul.

Even better, the Ohio delegates have primo seats in the convention hall—right up front in the center section of the floor. No better seats exist.

Standing in the hotel lobby, former House staffer Rob Lehman credited Davidson with all of the prized arrangements for Ohio delegates. While she demurred, saying that it was due to the importance of Ohio as a swing state, Lehman was undeterred: “All of the delegates have said that the reason we have such great space in the hotels and the convention center is because of Jo Ann,” he says.

At the Xcel Energy Center Tuesday evening, Davidson finally got to deliver the five-and-a-half-minute speech that Hurricane Gustav knocked from the previous night’s schedule. When she took the stage, her delegation led the cheers.

Davidson extolled the virtues of women in the party, tracing their roots to 1892, the last time a convention was held in the Twin Cities and the first time women were allowed to participate. Now, 116 years later, the Republicans are on the verge of nominating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for vice president. Davidson got so carried away that she mixed up Palin with Mary Pawlenty, the wife of Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, saying that today “we will nominate Gov. Sarah ‘Pawlenty’ for vice president.”

But she corrected herself later in the speech, noting that the first women speakers at the 1892 convention called for reform, and that has lasted. “From the days of Abraham Lincoln to the ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, reform is a core value guiding this party,” she said.

Davidson may have subconsciously remembered her meeting with Mary Pawlenty at the Laura Bush reception as she spoke. She and Pawlenty had discussed how spouses face public scrutiny when politicians run for office.

“When your spouse runs for office, your family has to be prepared,” she quoted Mary Pawlenty as saying.

That advice was particularly relevant on a day when the news about vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter was still reverberating through the convention.

Bristol Palin’s situation is one that “families across the country can relate to. She is fortunate to have a loving family to support her,” Davidson says. “It’s not the way parents would have programmed it. But I can’t believe there is a mother out there whose heart does not go out to her.”

Elaine S. Povich is a freelance writer who covers politics.