Ross Perot rides again?

Let’s forget Mayor “Boomberg” for the moment. Republicans remember only all too well how an egomaniacal billionaire handed the 1992 election to Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush. Now, many GOP members fear that Donald Trump will become 2016’s version of Ross Perot if he doesn’t get his way (read Republican nomination). Despite poll numbers now, Trump will not get the nomination. The question simply remains will he be a man about it and accept defeat or will the immature boy in him come to the fore where he takes his ball, goes home and decides he will play with a third party? And what irony that another Clinton could be the beneficiary of all this bombast? Would like to think Trump’s ego won’t prevail, but willing to bet it will.

Around Tampa Bay

1. Dunedin’s recently resigned city manager, Rob DiSpirito, leaves after nine years – approximately two years longer than the average city manager’s stay. A major reason for the split between manager and commission is turnover – on the commission. Three commissioners have been in office a little over a year; one for three years and the mayor, while a part of the commission for almost ten years, is new to the center seat and its responsibilities – not a healthy recipe for a city manager.

2. Some time ago (RANTS – July 4, 2015) we advocated term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices – twenty years. Now, there is legislation making the rounds in Tallahassee that would do the same for Florida justices. While we agree in principle with the Florida legislation, the term limit of 12 years doesn’t seem long enough to attract first rate jurists.

3. A tip of our Rants and Raves cap to Gulfport – the latest bay area city to realize the folly of red light cameras. The only question is – why did a city of 12,000 people and about 12 streets need them in the first place?

4. As January winds down, lest we forget our periodic update on the Clearwater Marina and its upscale Taco Bell restaurant now over two and half years in the making. We feel confident in saying it will open sometime in the next 11 months.

5. With the State Fair just around the corner, you’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you attended the fair (and its sprint car races) at the downtown Tampa fairgrounds.

The diamond, the media and other stuff

6. It’s hard to tell who came off as the bigger buffoons this past week – Donald Trump for his pouty refusal to participate in the most recent GOP debate – or Fox News with their snarky twitters and whatever along with Megyn Kelly with her self-serving commentary. As we mentioned before (RANTS- August 30, 2015), Trump is the best thing that ever happened to Kelly – known only to her cult following before the blow up with the GOP front runner.

7. Our crack sports prognosticator Achmed Walled (pronounced wall-ED) acknowledging that Denver (1) no longer has home field advantage (2) will not be playing a team forced to use their third string running back who made a crucial fumble inside the 30 and (3) not playing a team whose placekicker missed a PAT for the first time since George W. was President likes the Panthers by a whole lot over the Broncos.

8. Jake McGee for Corey Dickerson whose numbers at Coors Field and away are wildly disparate. Not so sure about that one.

9. Factoid as we lead up to Super Bowl Sunday: the winningest Super Bowl team (six rings) the Pittsburgh Steelers were originally named the Pittsburgh Pirates from their 1933 inception until 1941.

10. Our Raves and Rants focus group (comprised of three old, cranky people) feel the three most overpaid women in the country are Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White, Channel 8’s Gayle Guyardo and anyone named Kardashian.

The best book yet about American icon Eliot Ness

First there was the autobiography penned by Eliot Ness and co-author Oscar Fraley, then came the early sixties TV show, The Untouchables, followed by a couple books that were badly crafted hatchet jobs. Plus, there was the ridiculous movie starring Kevin Costner that was pure fantasy. Last year (actually late 2014) along comes Eliot Ness, the Rise and Fall of an American Hero by Douglas Perry – an on the mark effort that focuses as much on the lawman’s efforts in Cleveland as the well-publicized Chicago days. This is a good thing because the work of Ness in Cleveland was far more significant than the Untouchables era. The book is a very objective look at Ness which no other effort, written, televised or filmed can claim – although based on this work, Robert Stack’s “no shades of gray” portrayal of Ness in the TV series seems the next closest – an opinion shared by Ness’ widow. A small nitpick – Perry doesn’t seem to like newspaper writers (including Fraley) too often referring to them as “hacks”. But this is a solid book to add to your 2016 non-fiction reading list.