Oregon Mayor Shows Her Position on MySpace

It's a given in politics these days:  Somebody (most likely your opposition) is going to go digging through your closets, looking for skeletons.  Being fallible human beings, most of us have one or two.  But what happens when you put your skeleton out on the Internet for everybody to see?

Several years ago that's what Arlington, Oregon mayor Carmen Kontur-Gronquist did.  She posted a picture of herself on her MySpace page, showing her atop a fire truck in nothing but a bra and panties.  The picture was taken and posted before she became mayor (she is also the fire department's executive secretary).  But when she gained office she saw no reason to pull the picture.  Now residents in this small town are upset.

Kontur-Gronquist's official position on the photo (sitting?  standing?  lying on the hood?) is that she has done nothing wrong and that those who are offended need to get over it.  "That's my personal life," she said.  "It has nothing to do with my mayor's position."  She has since limited access of the picture to her MySpace friends only, but the furor hasn't died down.  Some residents claim that the picture reflects poorly on the city in general, and the mayor in particular.  The city council has not determined if this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I hate to break it to the townspeople of Arlington, but complaining about the picture isn't going to make it go away.  The picture was taken, it was posted on the Internet, people saw it, they formed their opinion about your fair town.  It's since been pulled from public access, but the damage (if any) has already been done.  If there's fallout, deal with it and move on.

I do have to question the mayor's comment about how her decision to take and post the photo publicly doesn't affect her mayoral decisions.  As the fire department's executive secretary, she obviously saw nothing wrong with using public city property to expose a part of her personal life.  Was this a one-time lapse in judgement, or a reflection of her decision-making policies?  (If you think this isn't a problem, I have two words for you:  Monica Lewinsky.)  These are issues that I believe the city council does indeed need to address.

And now for my own personal take on the subject.  Carmen, why is it that you as a woman felt it necessary and acceptable to take a cheesecake shot of yourself and make it available publicly?  Was this your way of showing that you can compete with the big boys?  If you want to be taken as seriously as a male would be, you're going about it all wrong.  You need to do something a little more mature, like have an affair with, oh, I don't know, maybe the executive secretary of the fire department.  Now THAT would be an interesting development!