Within minutes after being turned on Monday, the GOP's clock measuring how much the national debt had grown was moving up quickly.

Republicans called their convention to order, then quickly went into recess. Tropical storm Isaac has interfered with their schedule. They're not wasting time, though, in hitting what will be a familiar theme: That the national debt is soaring.

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.

But, they did follow party rules to officially declare the convention has begun and moments later took the opportunity to set in motion a "Debt From Convention Start" clock that's shining down on the arena, a few sections away from the "U.S. National Debt" clock that's been running for a week or so. You can expect many references to those clocks, and to the national debt, in coming days.

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