Go Maxie!

Fantastic feature in New York Magazine featuring Maxine Friedman! Maxine is getting duly deserved attention for her great work in building Lead21 in New York, an organization that I am involved with in San Francisco. Go Maxie!

The Convert
Maxine Friedman is just the sort of person you'd want to help you sell any message. And it's just as well, because Friedman is here to convert. Tall, blonde and glamorous, she moved to Manhattan in 2002 to take a promotion within the marketing division of CB Richard Ellis, the corporate-real-estate firm. More noticeable to her fellow Republicans, however, Friedman came here to spread the gospel of a California-based conservative group called Lead 21.

Lead 21 was founded in serious Clinton-Gore country--San Francisco--three years ago. "It was about planting a flag in the Bay Area, saying that you don't have to be afraid if you want to be Republican," Friedman explains. Lead 21 mixers were a place for serious conservatives to trade ideas with Dinesh D'Souza and former California governor Pete Wilson.

The group targets affluent young professionals, particularly those in the media and finance. While Friedman, 30, fits seamlessly into that crowd, she does have views that tend to raise eyebrows among some of her new friends in the city. "I have been a Christian--I'd say a strong Christian--for about four years. I'm not a Jerry Falwell, crazy, in-your-face Evangelical," she says. "But I'm scared a little bit for our country. I'm scared about the slipping social ethic."

Friedman, thus, is firmly anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. "The whole gay-rights thing is hard for me," she says sheepishly. "I have a ton of gay friends. I have a gay aunt. I have a transvestite uncle. I want what's best for them. It's tough for me. But, you know, I believe what the Bible says. That's the Word for me."

Friedman was raised in Los Altos, California, an only child, but part of a big, and very Democratic, family. "My mom's one of thirteen children, a big Catholic family. My parents were strong liberal Democrats. And I was, too, growing up."

Her "epiphany moment" came during the federal lockout of 1993. "All I could think of was how much money they were wasting, and I kept getting angrier and angrier about it. I felt like Bill Clinton was just so weak. He's articulate. He's a good orator. But he never seemed totally wholehearted on any issue. He was so soft."

Friedman insists that her political views are not a problem for her as she explores life in the East. "If anything, I find that people in New York kind of like the fact that you have an opinion. I really haven't faced too many arguments at dinner parties so far," she says. "But maybe that's because I'm hanging out with too many Republicans."