It's become a perennial problem for Republicans, but not one that the party yet knows how to solve.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I'm David Greene. Hurricane Isaac made landfall last night in Louisiana and it is battering the Gulf Coast with high winds and a lot of rain. For the latest we turn to NPR's Greg Allen. He's in New Orleans and we have reached him by telephone. And Greg, give us a sense of this storm. It sounds like, you know, Category 1, which, you know, makes you not worry so much, but a lot of people fearing that it could just stay in one place for a good while.

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Now, Greg mentioned Plaquemines Parish. Look at a map of Louisiana and you'll see that parish, a finger of land sticking far out into the Gulf of Mexico. Jennifer Hale of WVUE Television is in the parish, spent the night there. And Ms. Hale, where are you now?

The eye of Isaac made its first landfall at Plaquemines Parish, a stretch of thin land southeast of New Orleans that extends into the Gulf from Louisiana.

According to the parish president, the damage there is just as bad, perhaps even worse, than what happened during Katrina.

In an interview with Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, Billy Nungesser said the parish's levee had been overtopped and parts of the parish that had never flooded during a hurricane were under 5 feet of water.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis revised its GDP numbers today, saying that during the second quarter of this year, the United States economy grew at a 1.7 percent annual rate.

That's up from its original estimate of 1.5 percent.

The BEA reports:

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Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Finally, Larry Bird looms larger than Magic Johnson. The two players fought a famous rivalry in the '80s. Bird's Celtics and Johnson's Lakers battled for NBA titles again and again. But one thing could never change. In the college championship game in 1979, Johnson's Michigan State beat Bird's Indiana State. Now, Indiana State plans a 15-foot tall statue of Larry Bird, larger than any existing statue of Magic Johnson. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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People naturally focus on New Orleans, a great American city that is below sea level in many places, but you cannot understand the full effect of the storm without moving along the Gulf Coast. Mississippi, for example, has faced high water, tropical storm-force winds and pounding rain. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF WIND AND SURF)

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: As Isaac moves ashore near the mouth of Mississippi River in neighboring Louisiana, outer bands of the hurricane swept into Gulfport, Mississippi.