Return to the Eye of the Storm

Jo Ann Davidson, a Republican convention delegate from Ohio and the Republican National Committee co-chair as well, describes herself as “a competitive person who was raised as a Republican.”

That was in Findlay, a small town south of Toledo, but when she moved to Reynoldsburg, where she would raise two daughters east of Columbus, she saw her neighbors getting involved in politics—many as Democrats. One neighbor in particular, a man who owned a hardware store, was running for city council as a Democrat. She respected his political views, Davidson says, but she didn’t share them.

“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” says Davidson, now 80. “So that motivated me to pick up the phone, call the local Republicans, and say, ‘I’m new in the neighborhood.’ ”

She started at the bottom, volunteering at polling places. In the 1960s she won her first elective office, to the city council, and has enjoyed a lot of success ever since.

She was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives for 20 years and served as speaker from 1995 to 2000. As chairman of the Ohio House Republican Campaign Committee from 1986 to 2000, she headed the 1994 effort that regained a Republican majority in the state House, the first in 22 years. She has served as chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party Central Committee for 25 years and as chairman of Bob Taft’s successful gubernatorial campaigns in 1998 and 2002.

You might think that after all her years in Republican politics and having attended all but one national convention since 1976, the veteran delegate would be ho-hum about this one.

Not so. Davidson, who now has a political and public relations consulting company, is tingling with excitement over the convention in St. Paul, Minn. This time, she’s chairman of the committee on arrangements, and that means she’s been planning this convention for more than two years. She feels like she owns this one.

“I’ve played such a personal role, getting this one launched,” she says. “It’s the culmination of two-and-a-half years of work. I see this one in an altogether different light than the others.”

She’s going to be very busy, setting up events and working with the delegates, but that simply adds to her anticipation: “You see all the banners going up and preparations being made, and it’s exciting.”

At Davidson’s first convention, in 1976 in Kansas City, Ronald Reagan and incumbent Gerald Ford faced off in the last real convention battle for the Republican presidential nomination. It was a tumultuous time for the party, in the wake of the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Ford had taken over for Nixon, but there was concern about his ability to win the office on his own. Reagan was an upstart, and many people in the party were excited about him. To Davidson, though, Ford was a good man and the best candidate, and she was pleased that he won the nomination. From that moment on, even though Jimmy Carter defeated Ford in the general election, she was cemented as a party stalwart.

This year, she’s looking forward to returning to the “eye of the storm,” since Ohio is a key state in the election.

“We’ve been through a lot of presidential races,” she says. “John McCain will run very well in Ohio. In this particular time in our country, we need strong leadership and commitment.”

Davidson should know.

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