GOP Convention - Day 1

    As Hurricane Isaac gathers strength and heads for New Orleans, the GOP gathers in Tampa to try an whip up excitement for the world's most boring candidate and come away with a cohesive message.  Both Romney and Obama have a single task, in my opinion, which has nothing to do with birth certificates or tax returns: it is to try and regain trust.  Not so easy.
    We labor under a system in which members of Congress have allotted themselves annual salaries of $174,000 to $194,000 with very sweet insurance and retirement benefits.  Not quite as sweet as the email chain letter that goes around from time to time implies, but still pretty sweet.   The same system allows a Congressman to sit on a committee that regulates an industry, and when his term is up accept a multi-million dollar job in that same industry.  It allows congressional staffers to leave and take multi-million dollar jobs on K Street.  It allows lobbyists and legislators to freely exchange special access and special gifts.  There is a word for all this - it is "corruption."  The core of this corruption runs so deep as to affect our entire economy. Until one of these candidates addresses this crippling issue and credibly vows to fix it, a pox on both their houses.