National

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

That classic question — so famously asked by then-candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980 — is again a topic of great debate as Democrats kick off their 2012 national convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with congratulations to Stephen Brede. He climbed into a canoe on the Michigan shore of Lake Erie in June. Two months later he returned to the same spot from the opposite direction, having paddled around the entire lake. He says he camped onshore and sometimes residents took him in. The Petoskey News-Review says he now reports having paddled around three of the Great Lakes. And at age 61, he has two to go. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Delegates, journalists and protesters are beginning to fill the streets of Charlotte, N.C. The city has a lot riding on the Democratic National Convention, which gets under way Tuesday.

Hundreds of protesters paraded around the downtown area of Charlotte — which residents call Uptown — gathering in front of Bank of America headquarters.