Just a few miles from downtown Cleveland's preoccupied hum and gleaming skyscrapers, in the hollowed-out slums that resemble deserted ghost-towns, the notion of this city hosting the Republican National Convention that begins Monday is akin to a killer returning to the scene of the crime, to gloat if nothing else. There is almost no poorer place in the U.S. than this post-industrial patch of land on the banks of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River, thanks in no small part to the GOP's conservative scheme to empty the pockets of what was once the wealthiest working class in history.
