(Democratic) Candidate Caught Stripping For Playboy
Western Center for Journalism ^ | 10/21/12
Posted on Sunday, October 21, 2012 6:33:21 PM by markomalley
Running for office as a devoted wife and mother of two sons besides Sunday school teacher, Amy Biviano’s campaign has been rocked by the revelation of her appearance in Playboy.
The dictionary definition of hypocritical is the “pretense of having virtues, beliefs, principles, etc.” Many politicians are well described by this adjective; but in 2012, none deserves it more than Amy Biviano.
Biviano has worked hard to transform her image from a Yale educated anthropologist and self-avowed feminist into a suburban mom with an adoring husband.
This is how she describes herself on her own website:
“I am a long-time Spokane Valley resident, a mother, and small business owner… I grew up in a small, close-knit town in Oklahoma, the daughter of a farmer and a public school teacher. I met my husband Andrew in 1993, on our first day of freshman year at Yale University, and we married two months after graduation. We moved to Andrew’s hometown of Spokane Valley in 2001, deciding that it is the ideal place to raise our family. We have now been married almost 15 years and have two incredible sons: Alex, age 13, and Aidan, age 11…I am an active member of Bethany Presbyterian Church, where I teach Sunday school and serve on the finance committee.”
What she doesn’t share in her bio is her work as a model for Playboy. She appeared in the October 1995 issue of the Men’s soft porno magazine as part of a special spread on “The Women of the Ivy League.”
Amy Biviano until now has been a darling of the Democratic Party in Washington State. After serving as the Chairman of the Democrats in Spokane County, she is now locked in a race to unseat conservative favorite Representative Matt Shea in the 4th Legislative District which stretches across the Spokane Valley.
Usually a conservative stronghold, this year, liberals on the state redistricting committee have redrawn the 4th district lines to make it competitive for Amy Biviano.
Ironically, a central theme of her campaign has been repeated demands that Representative Shea tell all about his past. She is referring to Shea’s divorce from first wife Lisa. This is well-trod turf with Democrats and the local liberal media bringing up his divorce in every one of his earlier campaigns. They claim that the breakdown of his first marriage is fair game because Representative Shea is the Legislature’s biggest opponent of gay marriage.
It is appropriate since she is demanding answers from Shea’s past that she fully disclose her own. She tells Playboy in the interview that accompanies the photo spread that she is a feminist, saying, “I wanted to pose for Playboy to show that we’re not asexual man-haters.” She also told Playboy that her future plans as an Anthropologist included a desire to study sex in other cultures around the globe.
None of her high profile work as a Playboy model is in her currently-posted biography. Her attempts to hide this episode in her life from voters’ view until now have come to an end
