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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

The Florida peninsula has been spared the worst of tropical storm Isaac. The large system is now in the Gulf of Mexico, taking aim at a wide swath of the northern Gulf coast. Forecasters predict Isaac will pick up strength as it travels over the warm Gulf waters and will become a hurricane. They expect the storm to make landfall by Wednesday morning.

As the Republican convention gets under way in Tampa tomorrow, we can expect to hear more about the personal life of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

With a bang of his supersized gavel, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus just opened the 2012 GOP convention.

And moments later with another bang of the gavel he declared it in recess.

As we've reported, tropical storm Isaac convinced Republicans to delay the real start of their convention until Tuesday.

With nearly 700 food carts licensed last year, Portland, Ore., is arguable a leader in the mobile food revolution. Lucky residents can choose between Iraqi-Jewish sabich, yeasted Belgian liege waffles, or Indonesian rendang, all served out of a friendly window on the sidewalk. But all of these mobile meals come with a downside — namely, trash.

Phyllis and Darren Sudman started Simon's Fund in 2005, after their 3-month-old son Simon died in his sleep. They learned later that Simon had an undetected silent heart condition.

Today, Simon's Fund provides free heart screenings to children throughout the Philadelphia area to prevent other families from experiencing the same tragedy.

Even some Republicans don't think the loss of Monday's proceedings at their party's national convention in Tampa, due to Tropical Storm Isaac, will matter much in the grand scheme of things.

"The whole drama of the hurricane's very unique here," says David Woodard, a GOP consultant who teaches at Clemson University. "Suppose Isaac wiped out the whole convention — who cares?"

Conventions clearly are a diminished thing, Woodard says. They no longer decide who the presidential nominees are going to be, in anything but a strictly formal sense.

Political conventions, even ones that have been delayed a day by a tropical storm, are all about getting a party's message out to the nation.

Minutes ago in the Tampa Convention Center, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky used a sit-down with USA Today and Gannett correspondents to restate one key argument Republicans have been making and will continue to make through Election Day:

All eyes are on Tampa as Republicans get together to fire up their base, and attract independents to the fold. But one poll shows Mitt Romney with zero percent of African-Americans supporting him. Host Michel Martin discusses outreach to black voters with Tara Wall. She's a senior communications adviser with the Mitt Romney for President campaign.