Goodman rides off

We knew it had to be for real when the mayor started giving away his office supply of gin.

Term limited after 12 years, former criminal attorney Oscar Goodman will ride off into the sunset this week.

Well, not too far into the sunset. In what’s at least in part a voter tribute to the man who turned the mayoralty into the primary national public relations bullhorn for all things Las Vegas, Mr. Goodman will be succeeded by his wife, Carolyn.

And Oscar says his main goal is to stay busy — promoting the town for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau, for one thing.

“I have an agreement in principle that I’ll be doing a part-time job as the ‘brand’ of Las Vegas,” he said last week.

When he first ran for the office, 12 years ago, we wrote an editorial headlined “Anybody but Oscar,” warning that the mob lawyer was precisely the wrong man for the job.

The background was indisputable. Mr. Goodman for 35 years had been the nation’s pre-eminent defense attorney for violent gangsters including Meyer Lansky, Anthony Spilotro, Frank Rosenthal and Phil Leonetti. Las Vegans knew these characters hadn’t been mere actors in some TV show, who took off the black shirts and white ties after the evening’s final Ford ad.

But Oscar proved us (and the other doubters) fabulously wrong. The furthest thing from a calculating politician, the Happiest — and most entertaining — Mayor in the World became widely loved simply for “being Oscar.”

No one was really very outraged when the city’s biggest teddy bear said graffiti artists who cost the town millions in new paint should have their thumbs cut off. OK, maybe a few folks really did cringe when he told school kids the one thing he’d want on a desert island would be his bottle of gin.

But when millions tuned in the “Today” show to watch the mayor of Las Vegas cavort with the California Raisins, Las Vegans knew they’d found the guy to promote their national brand without apology.

Will the downtown redevelopment projects he promoted continue to prosper? Hopefully. But the mayor was pragmatic, concentrating on what was do-able in the short term.

Would some of it have happened without Oscar? Probably. But he was the tireless promoter.

What now? A book? A reality show? Oscar’s Steakhouse?

Mayor Goodman has earned a rest, if he wants one. But we’d bet there are still a few show girls and martinis in his future.

“I understand that there’s a ‘CSI’ part that’s being written for me which will be filmed in August,” the mayor says, referring to the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.” But that’ll be just a “one-shot deal,” he explains. “I think I get killed.”