Tom Davis: Hodges donor in his "youth"

If you know who Tom Davis is, then you get an ‘A+’ in Following Politics Way Too Closely. For those of you picking your nose in the back of class, Davis is the Sanford aide who recently resigned from his post to run for elected office. He faces Catherine Ceips in the GOP primary for Senate Seat #376 down in Beaufort. Don’t quote me on that district number.

Last week, Davis was interviewed by the good folks at the editorial board of The State newspaper about his ambitions. In the chat, which you can watch here on Brad Warthen’s blog, Davis predicts that his past political affiliations may come back to bite him.

Enter Brad Warthen, questionnaire extraordinaire:

Brad: “What you’re saying is that you have two liabilities in a Republican race: (1) you used to be a Democrat and (2) much worse, you worked for Mark Sanford.” (laughter from editors, gulping sound from Davis' throat)

Davis: “Uh, I wouldn’t characterize it that way. But um you know, it’s a fact that when I was right out of law school, um, as I think a lot of people when they come out of school are, they tend to be a little bit more idealistic and a little bit more, in my opinion, trusting of the good that can come from government.”

Amen to that. Ask any recent law school graduate (if you can drag him out of his NARAL meeting) and he’ll tell you that law school is three years of left-wing indoctrination. So nobody can fault Tom Davis for being idealistic way back when.

Besides, to hear Tom Davis tell it, what we’re talking about is a bright-eyed kid, law degree in one hand, New Coke(®) in the other, blasting “We Are The World” a little too loud from the stereo of his Delorian. No big whoop.

Warthen’s post goes on to describe Davis as “a very open, candid, straightforward, sincere kind of guy.”

While I trust Brad implicitly, Gervais decided to find out what Tom Davis meant by his political affiliations “right out of law school” by going to my favorite website, FollowTheMoney.org.

Turns out, he probably meant “1998,” about thirteen or so years after graduating from law school. That’s when he gave two contributions to the campaign of governor Jim Hodges.

Best as I can tell, Davis’ political conversion occurred sometime around 2002.

How much will this matter in District #384’s imminent GOP primary? Who knows? It sure wouldn’t matter to me, and probably shouldn’t matter to the voters of Beaufort.

Gervais says, all that should matter is whether a given candidate is an "open, candid, straightforward, sincere kind of guy."