Rep. Matt Wand and the Playmates on Twitter

Give Rep. Matt Wand his due.

The Troutdale Republican took down the Twitter page as soon as I called him on it.

He returned my call and answered all my questions.

And rather than complain about my Aug. 12 column on the adventures of the House GOP caucus at a Palm Springs strip club, Wand was only annoyed that I dragged his Healthy Teens bill into the discussion.

But the fact remains that a week after the Palm Springs story broke, Wand was still maintaining a Twitter account in which the 37-year-old Republican was following Playboy Playmates Sara Jean Underwood, Holly Madison and Kara Monaco, actress Alyssa Milano, and Sports Illustrated cover-girl Kate Upton.?

As of Thursday afternoon, Wand was following 39 people on www.twitter.com/MatthewWand, including Oregon State football coach Mike Riley, Beaver football alums JacQuizz Rodgers and Mike Remmers, the Reynolds Raiders and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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But the strong emphasis on the Twitter account was, shall we say, young and attractive women, including Katy Perry, Paulina Gretzky; actresses Jennifer Love Hewitt, Shannon Elizabeth and Zooey Deschanel, Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly and Kimberly Guilfoyle, and one Mona Zohrehvand, whose Twitter bio is a succinct "California Love."

The MatthewWand Twitter "following" was such a classic array of family ties (including the legislator's wife, Ann) and wishful thinking that I first thought it was fake, artfully constructed by a Democrat with a subversive sense of humor.

But after I emailed Wand Thursday afternoon and asked if the page was his, he confirmed that it was, even as he and his House staff were blowing it up.

He originally set up the account, Wand said, to link to his Facebook page and follow "some celebrities and sports figures."? Asked why the page had vanished, Wand said, "I don't really use Twitter.? It's something I experimented with a while back.
"If I have something I don't really use, and isn't of any interest to me, and someone is getting confused by it, I wouldn't want someone to be confused."

Late last week, Wand had three Twitter accounts:? (a) a legislative page, (b) a page from the 2010 campaign that first brought him to the Oregon Legislature; and (c) @MatthewWand.

As you'll see on these screen shots, the personal page didn't have a great deal of activity, only 29 Tweets.? "It wasn't something I was integrating into my day, the way I would with Facebook," Wand said.

Still, Matt ... Alyssa Milano?? Holly Madison?

Sarah Jean Underwood?

"She went to Oregon State," Wand offered.

Am I surprised, therefore, that Wand wants to stay connected?? No.

Am I stunned that a political consultant or the chairman of the Oregon GOP didn't swing by after Palm Springs and tell Wand and his buddies to clean up their Twitter accounts?? Very.

As Mark Wiener, Portland's most successful political consultant, put it, "Look, neither party has a monopoly on foolishness.? But in this case, the Republican leadership is acting like they belong more in a junior high boys locker room than in a capitol building."

And who can blame the voters for thinking, Wiener added, that a time when the state is confronted by a host of serious problems, "they gave a bunch of aging frat boys the keys to the family car."

Which brings me, I guess, to the source of my "confusion":? At a time when we need serious, focused adults in the Oregon House, why are we stuck with a bunch of guys who can't stop putting their pubescent fantasies on parade?

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf/2012/08/matt_wand_twitter.html

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