Michael Davidson, Republican of Berkeley, is standing in the circular, two-story foyer of a Mediterranean dream home in a gated neighborhood in Laguna Niguel, sounding every bit like a headliner at a political fundraiser Ñ which he is.
Davidson, 25, is running for chairman of the College Republican National Committee, a powerful grass-roots organization with thousands of members and a multimillion-dollar budget. He’s in the race partly because of a fundraising controversy that has threatened to tarnish the group’s reputation. And he has taken on a young man from South Dakota who was, until Davidson declared in February, heir apparent to the chairmanship.
On Saturday, at its biannual convention in Virginia, College Republicans will elect a new leader after months of charges, countercharges, endorsement switches and a blogosphere gone wild.
On this night, however, at the home of GOP activists Wayne and Linda Lindholm, Davidson does not dwell on dirty laundry. He does not mention the infamous “lapel pin letter” that brought the fundraising controversy to the forefront last year. Instead, flanked by four American flags and hand-painted signs, Davidson confidently delivers Ñ seemingly off the cuff Ñ an anecdote-rich speech about his triumphs as a conservative on a liberal campus. In Orange County Ñ where George Bush captured nearly 60% of the vote in 2004 Ñ this theme resonates.
Add to that a dash of Sept. 11 patriotism and Davidson is mining rhetorical gold:
“On Berkeley’s campus after 9/11, they told us, ‘You can’t have red, white and blue ribbons. The American flag is divisive.’ So we flipped out to say the least.” Dueling press conferences ensued. And then, “The wrath of an angry nation descends upon the chancellor at Berkeley and he blinks.” The College Republicans ended up distributing about 5,000 ribbons on the campus.
