National

The nation's foreclosure crisis rarely is mentioned by the presidential candidates, but it looms large as their campaigns grapple with finding evicted voters in swing states.

Organizers are discovering scores of vacated homes in key battlegrounds that contributed strong turnouts in the 2008 election. In the past four years, more than 3.7 million homes have been lost to foreclosure, according to market research firm CoreLogic.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up, a storm threatens many of the same areas that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina seven years ago. We'll check in with the director of Homeland Security for New Orleans to find out how the city and its neighbors are getting ready. That's just ahead.

Isaac is headed toward the Gulf Coast, and Louisiana's governor has declared a state of emergency. The storm is threatening to hit New Orleans as the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches. Host Michel Martin speaks with Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed of Homeland Security in New Orleans, about how they're preparing the city for the storm.

There's been a lot of debate about whether working moms "can have it all." But all this talk has got singles saying they'd also like to have a better life outside of work. Host Michel Martin discusses single women who want to get "off the fast track" with columnist Sue Shellenbarger and lawyer Anne Marie Bowler.

Single mothers have a lot on their plate, but reports show that the unemployment rate among single moms has doubled in the last five years. Host Michel Martin speaks with three moms who have raised children as single moms, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Dani Tucker and Angelica Perez-Litwin.

Saying that "it's offensive to me as a woman and as a minority" that Democrats portray the GOP as "the party that hates you" when they reach out to non-whites, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley made the case this morning that it's the Republican Party that minorities should be looking to join.

There are lots of ways to get to 270 and they don't all involve Florida's 29 electoral votes, according to Rich Beeson, the national political director for the Mitt Romney Campaign.

Beeson, speaking with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep on Tuesday, says the Sunshine State would be nice to have in the red column, but it's not a sine qua non for clinching victory in November.

Good morning from Tampa where the Isaac-delayed Republican National Convention is set to get going for real this afternoon.

It's going to be a busy day for the GOP once the delegates are called to order at 2 p.m. ET. Here are some highlights from the schedule:

When the Republican National Convention finally gets underway today here in Tampa, it will renew a civil war that's been raging — off and on — for more than a century.