Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - some of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

What is the Pinellas Commission afraid of?

The most leveled headed of Pinellas County’s Commissioners, Dave Eggers, can’t seem to convince three of his fellow commissioners to allow the general electorate to have a say in commission term limits. The latest 4-3 vote came last month, now requiring what Eggers describes as a Herculean task of getting 55,000 signatures by a grass roots organization, Friends of Pinellas County, to put the question on the November ballot. It’s easy to understand why commissioners Flowers, Gerard, Long and Seel oppose the measure. It’s simply the power of incumbency. Flowers’ remark “residents have a voice every four years at the ballot box and can vote incumbents out of office” is utter nonsense. Incumbents and their cronies can make it rain money making an outsider challenge, better qualified or not, next to impossible. In Florida, 95% of incumbents win local elections and that isn’t because they are doing that great a job – it is money along with general indifference of voters in down ballot races. Pinellas County doesn’t owe its elected officials a lifetime job. We can only hope Friends of Pinellas County can get those 55,000 signatures and bring an end to “commissioners for life” in Pinellas.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

Is Vladimir Putin any less a war criminal than Tojo, Goring and the rest?

We have never owned a firearm in our life, but now we feel it necessary - to protect ourselves from popcorn throwers. You’ve got to wonder about the state of mind of a guy who feels it necessary to carry a firearm into a movie theater. What an outrageous miscarriage of justice.

With the race months away, Gov. Ron DeSantis leads in his re-election bid by double digits over the three major Democratic candidates. That lead is bound to narrow as Democrats unite behind one candidate. Right now, Charlie Crist has a slight lead over Nikki Fried and Annette Taddeo.

Oddity: we keep hearing of large backups at the IRS, yet we got our tax refund in something like 10 days.

A rant we air every couple of years or so – we would be willing to pay a little more in county taxes if Pinellas County could ever get their traffic lights in sync, avoiding light to light stop and goes for county drivers.

The name Gail Halvorsen may not mean much to you, but it did to the kids in East Berlin in the late 1940s. He was the so-called “candy bomber” who dropped sweets to kids caught up in the Soviet blockade after World War II. He was a hero to those kids. Halvorsen, who visited East Germany many times after the Berlin Airlift, passed away last week at age 101.

From the 5:05 Newsletter: In response to record levels of unprosecuted shoplifting, Walgreens stores in San Francisco have introduced a new “Frequent Looter Rewards Card.” Looters who loot a Walgreens 5 times will be awarded a mail-in voter registration.

THIS WEEK IN 1974: PEOPLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHES ITS FIRST EDITION. CIRCULATION IS NOW 3.75 MILLION.

Lighter stuff:

As Lent begins this week, a tip of the cap to McDonald’s franchisee Lou Groen who developed the company’s very popular Filet-O-Fish in 1962. Over 25 per cent of all Filet-O-Fish sandwiches sold in 2022 will be sold during the next 40 days between this week and Easter.

Hats off to the Rooney family, who seem to manage to win while practicing hiring diversity, on their hire of Brian Flores to a key role on their coaching staff.

Idle thought: Matthew Stafford is finally surrounded by a good, not great team and wins it all.

Sports number of the Week: One – the number of winning seasons the Jacksonville Jaguars have had in the past 14 seasons. The Bucs’ Byron Leftwich wisely passed.

MLB players’ and owners’ greed has cost at least a week of Spring Training games for fans in Clearwater, Dunedin and Tampa. But you’ve got to feel for North Port, Florida, whose four-year-old stadium is seeing their fourth truncated spring season due to construction delays, COVID and, this year, greed.

Just asking: Since we apparently are going to eliminate pitchers hitting in both leagues, why not go to an 8-man batting order, rather than trotting out a bunch of guys who should give all of their gloves to a local thrift store?

Focus Group: Oval office in 2024

After dealing with American landmarks last month, and realizing this Biden thing isn’t working out, we asked our TBR&R Focus Group to zero in on the 2024 Presidency – specifically who they would like to see (as opposed to predict) in the White House in 2024. We will revisit this question a year and two years from now to allow for changing trends. Our first response came from one of the true policy wonks on our elite panel. He, while reserving the right to change his mind one and two years hence, favors our Governor Ron DeSantis for the presidency. Our second responder, also a bit of political nerd, would like to see our first woman President in the person of former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. One of our original Focus Group members who has had a knack for picking Presidential winners over the last couple of decades weighs in with simply anybody but Donald Trump. Similarly, another group member said they would like to see a Republican back in the White House, but has reservations about the previous occupant. Another Focus Group original went outside the political spectrum and would like the calm, straightforward demeanor of former Fox, now CNN, commentator Chris Wallace in the White House. Our only out of state Focus Group member feels if he cannot have our Governor for his horribly run state, he’d also like to have Ron DeSantis as America’s next chief executive. Lastly, another Focus Group contributor has her list down to two – U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas or our state’s chief executive.

NEXT UP: Clearwater’s election; Turning eight; K-Mart

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