VIDEO: Rand Paul Turns Up The Heat In Tampa.

UPDATE: Artur Davis: I know my speech was a success because MSNBC blacked it out.

JOBS: Serious shortage of skilled auto mechanics looming.

UPDATE: Pushback from reader Dan Dressel:

I work directly with auto part stores and repair shops, and all I can say is don’t believe the hype. A lot of shops have closed the last two years due to the recovery, and there are a lot of young, trained mechanics out there doing other things. As soon as a good job turning wrenches opens up (and they can’t go back on unemployment after working six months), they’ll leave whatever service position they have and get back under the hood.

In my position, I’m seeing a people who used to be in faddish professions following a trend (real estate, mortgage brokers, and yes, tattoo artists) who are coming back to turning wrenches after the other jobs/professions became less lucrative/glamorous, and they wanted good money and a steady path.

There are younger mechanics working out there, focused on specialty engines and mods to imports (VW and the Japanese manufacturers getting most of the attention), but they tend to become more generalized the older they get, and they are learning locally and not through the GM Tech Schools. This may be the point of the article – make it seem like a shortage is looming to try and boost attendance at the automotive vocational schools, especially the ones that advertise, like GM.

Hmm.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Gasoline To Hit New Labor Day High. Wanna bet it’ll get less press coverage than last time it did that?

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Remember when gas was two bucks a gallon because ‘Bush is an oil man?’ At four bucks a gallon, Obama must be Jed Clampett.”

HARRISON SCHMITT remembers Neil Armstrong.

LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Americans look down on public schools. “Only 32 percent of Americans believe public schools deliver a good education, and just five percent of people surveyed believe students at public schools will receive an excellent education. Sixty-one percent of Americans think public schools will give only a fair education at best, including 18 percent who rate the education as poor.”

JOEL KOTKIN: The Unseen Class War That Could Decide The Presidential Election.

There is no true solidarity among the rich since no one is yet threatening their status. The “one percent” are splitting their bets. In 2008 President Obama received more Wall Street money than any candidate in history, and he still relies on Wall Street bundlers for his sustenance. For all his class rhetoric, miscreant Wall Streeters, particularly big ones, have evaded big sanctions and the ignominy of jail time. . . .

With the patriarchate divided, the real action in the emerging class war is taking place further down the economic food chain. This inconvenient reality is largely ignored by the left, which finds the idea of anyone this side of Bain Capital supporting Romney as little more than “false consciousness.”

Obama’s core middle-class support, and that of his party, comes from what might be best described as “the clerisy,” a 21st century version of France’s pre-revolution First Estate. This includes an ever-expanding class of minders — lawyers, teachers, university professors, the media and, most particularly, the relatively well paid legions of public sector workers — who inhabit Washington, academia, large non-profits and government centers across the country.

This largely well-heeled “middle class” still adores the president, and party theoreticians see it as the Democratic Party’s new base. Gallup surveys reveal Obama does best among “professionals” such as teachers, lawyers and educators. After retirees, educators and lawyers are the two biggest sources of campaign contributions for Obama by occupation. Obama’s largest source of funds among individual organizations is the University of California, Harvard is fifth and its wannabe cousin Stanford ranks ninth.

Like teachers, much of academia and the legal bar like expanding government since the tax spigot flows in the right direction: that is, into their mouths. Like the old clerical classes, who relied on tithes and the collection bowl, many in today’s clerisy lives somewhat high on the hog; nearly one in five federal workers earn over $100,000.

Essentially, the clerisy has become a new, mass privileged class who live a safer, more secure life compared to those trapped in the harsher, less cosseted private economy. As California Polytechnic economist Michael Marlow points out, public sector workers enjoy greater job stability, and salary and benefits as much as 21% higher than of private sector employees doing similar work. . . .

The GOP, for its part, now relies on another part of the middle class, what I would call the yeomanry. In many ways they represent the contemporary version of Jeffersonian farmers or the beneficiaries of President Lincoln’s Homestead Act. They are primarily small property owners who lack the girth and connections of the clerisy but resist joining the government-dependent poor. Particularly critical are small business owners, who Gallup identifies as “the least approving” of Obama among all the major occupation groups. Barely one in three likes the present administration.

The yeomanry diverge from the clerisy in other ways. They tend to live in the suburbs, a geography much detested by many leaders of the clerisy and, likely, the president himself. Yeomen families tend to be concentrated in those parts of the country that have more children and are more apt to seek solutions to social problems through private efforts. Philanthropy, church work and voluntarism — what you might call, appropriately enough, the Utah approach, after the state that leads in philanthropy.

The nature of their work also differentiates the clerisy from the yeomanry. The clerisy labors largely in offices and has no contact with actual production. Many yeomen, particularly in business services, depend on industry for their livelihoods either directly or indirectly. The clerisy’s stultifying, and often job-toxic regulations and “green” agenda may be one reason why people engaged in farming, fishing, forestry, transportation, manufacturing and construction overwhelmingly disapprove of the president’s policies, according to Gallup.

Read the whole thing.

JEREMY LOTT: “Harper’s should just give up on covering Republican conventions. It really has no idea how to do it without looking incredibly stupid.”

CHANGE: “For the very first time, the favorable/unfavorable ratios are now higher for the Republican Party than for the Democratic Party. For the first time ever, the Democratic favorability ratio, which has always been within the range of 1.20 to 1.56, is now below 1. It is a stunningly low .83, which is 31% lower than the prior Democratic Party low of 1.20, which was reached in 2004. . . . Under President Obama, there has been an unprecedentedly sharp and first-ever switch to preferring the Republican Party over the Democratic Party. In fact, the damage that has been done to the Democratic brand under the Obama Presidency, going from a historically normal Democratic ratio of 1.38 in 2008, down 39% to the present .83, compares with the Republican fall-offs under George W. Bush’s Presidency, which declined from the Republican ratio of 1.41 in 2000, down 18% to 1.16 in 2004, and then down yet another 31% to .80 in 2008, when the Republican Party hit its all-time (back until 1992) pre-convention low – which virtually doomed the campaign of Presidential candidate John McCain and made Obama’s win almost inevitable. The Democratic brand has thus suffered more (down 39%) under Obama than the Republican brand suffered under either of George W. Bush’s two terms (-16%, then -31%).”

UPDATE: Reader Ralph Tacoma writes: “I’d suggest that it’s particularly significant that it’s deteriorated so badly in spite of the fact that the media has been totally in the tank for the Democrats during both terms. I’d suggest that it’s an indication of the weakening power of hte MSM.”

FROM IRA STOLL, thoughts on night two of the RNC.

IF I WERE THE ISRAELIS, I’D BE KEEPING THIS VERY MUCH IN MIND: Germany’s Secret Contacts to Palestinian Terrorists. “Eleven Israelis and one German police officer died in the Munich massacre of 1972, when Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympics. Now, government documents suggest that Germany maintained secret contacts with the organizers of the attack for years afterward and appeased the Palestinians to prevent further bloodshed on German soil.”

For that matter, if I were anyone anywhere wanting to manipulate the Germans, I’d keep it in mind, too.

DAN RIEHL: Dear Juan Williams — Stop Digging!

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: As HELOC Delinquency Rates Hit A Record, Are Student Loans Next?

OKAY, IT’S SKED FOR TOMORROW, BUT INSTAPUNDIT PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS — WHICH IS EVERYBODY! — CAN READ IT NOW: My USA Today column: Seniors suffer under Obama. Where’s the outcry?

UPDATE: Reader Mac Overton writes:

There is another pernicious repercussion to such low interest rates – and they affect the young as well as the old. The drop in interest income is keeping seniors working rather than retiring and forcing some retirees to rejoin the workforce. Those jobs taken by seniors crowds out job opportunities for younger workers..

Latest data from the BLS:
Employed – age 65 and over
July 2012: 6,155,000
July 2008: 5,193,000
Net add: + 962,000

Employed – ages 16 to 64
July 2012: 144,580,000
July 2008: 144,731,000
Net loss: -151,000

Basically, all new jobs (and then some) created in the past four years have all been taken up by seniors – which is why many youngsters sit on their parents couch at home – granddad and grandma took their first job…..thanks in part to the abnormally low interest rates.

Well, they can always sit in their childhood bedrooms and stare up at those fading Obama posters.

A VIDEO INTERVIEW with Hating Breitbart director Andrew Marcus.

ON TWITTER, many journos were amazed that Condi Rice spoke without a teleprompter, just from notes. I had to point out that professors do that all the time.

UPDATE: Reader Craig Mason writes: “Don’t tell that to Professor Obama.” Bah. A mere Lecturer.

ED DRISCOLL: And now, a Few Words from Margaret Thatcher on the Failure of Obamanomics.

BRIDGET JOHNSON on Condi’s speech. “She said America’s narrative has never been one ‘of grievance and entitlement.'”

AT AMAZON, 70% or more off on Men’s Clothing. Also on Women’s Clothing.

LESLIE LOFTIS: Ann Romney, The Corporate Wife: Is your opinion worthless if you don’t get paid for it? “In every other area of life, the fact that someone is paid for an opinion is a strike against credibility. In the post-feminist era, we are supposed to believe it is a mark of credibility — at least for women. This absurdity reminds me of a related twist that has often bothered me: why are those who are paid by non-profits and assorted socially acceptable organizations deemed more compassionate than heartless conservatives who often do similar work for free?”

PAUL RYAN: “With all their attack ads, the President is just throwing away money. And he’s pretty experienced at that!”

Plus: “The recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.”

Also: “I have never seen opponents so silent about their record and so desperate to keep their power. They’ve run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division is all they’ve got left.”

“College graduates should not have to spend their twenties in their childhood bedrooms, looking up at their fading Obama posters and wondering when they will be able to get going in life.”

UPDATE: Comment: “He looks like a young JFK, only healthy.”

MATT LEWIS: On paranoia and the left’s obsession with hearing ‘dog whistles.’

CONDI RICE: “We cannot be afraid to lead, and you cannot lead from behind. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan understand this reality.”

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Military Science.

ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH ROMNEY’S SECRET SERVICE PROTECTION: Secret Service gun inadvertently left in Romney plane lavatory. Should he be hiring private security?

ADVICE FOR THE RNC: A reader emails:

Hi, first of all, if you’re even reading this, thank you. I know you must be bombarded with e-mails. Like many of your other readers, I would ask that if you do anything with this, you do not associate my name with anything. It would pretty much destroy me professionally.

I’m a reformed liberal and hearing election coverage tends to make me nuts. You have influence and I wanted to float an idea to you (for possible consideration and publicity). I think the RNC should start a website submission process where regular people (like me) can submit ideas for adds. I’m a suburban, working mom. I am the person they’re trying to reach. You’d think that people like me would have good ideas for how the out of touch politician can speak to us and our peers. Plus, it would be easy…I swear the commercials could half write themselves.

“It would pretty much destroy me professionally.” It’s a shame that American politics have descended into such a reign of terror.

UPDATE: Reader Jody Green writes: “You are so right to highlight this most disgusting fact of life in a country built on freedom. If you are Black, Hispanic, work in Hollywood, Journalism, Law or Academia you must hide your true beliefs or your life/job will be targeted. This is the real battle for the future.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Another reader emails: “Identifying with conservative issues, and I’m not even talking social issues, is professional death in the non-profit world. So, please, if you use this, don’t use my name.”

Meanwhile, reader George Milonas writes:

My advice for Romney and Ryan:

They need to take an immediate tour of hurricane ravaged areas offering help to locals and demanding Obama declare the area a disaster area. They would look presidential while Obama golfs and fundraises-what he does best.

It would make a great ad.

Indeed.

MORE: Another reader writes:

Your comment, “It’s a shame that American politics have descended into such a reign of terror” regarding reformed liberal readers’ requests not to be identified is telling. I work in an industry that is almost exclusively conservative, in a very conservative state (Texas). I’ve worked with a few liberals, and they were quite open about it. While we sometimes discussed politics at lunch or around the coffee pot, I never saw any of my fellow conservatives berate, threaten or ridicule the liberals. No one was ever called names. We respect them, even though we disagree with them.

My wife, on the other hand, works in a liberal profession. The few times she’s let her true feelings show, she’s been met with disdain, antipathy and outright disgust. She’s afraid to put a Romney sticker on her car for fear of it being vandalized in the employee parking lot. What is it that causes liberals, the so-called champions of diversity, to react so violently to conservative thoughts?

Tribalism and intellectual insecurity.

MORE STILL: Sarah Hoyt emails:

For years I worried, to the point of having an elaborate fake identity to comment on political blogs. I thought if I came out politically my publishing houses would drop me and of course, we couldn’t live without the money.

Then the one of my editors — Toni Weisskopf at Baen — who knew I was a libertarian and with whom I’d traded emails about the significance of Heinlein’s Puppet Masters to our current situation, asked me to write the foreword to the re-edition of the book. I was aware this might kill my career with every other house but Baen, and at the time Baen took maybe a book from me every two years: not enough to live on.

I did it anyway, because I felt I had to. I was right. The other houses dropped me like a hot potato and the last two years were pretty rough income wise. But then as a writer, I can now self publish, Darkship Thieves did pretty well, and Baen is now buying a lot more books from me and… I think in a year or so, once we backfill that hole, I’ll be all right.

However — in the moments when I thought I wasn’t being paranoid — I wasn’t. In the arts and creative fields of endeavor, too, being conservative/libertarian is the kiss of death. (Unless you write sf/f and are lucky enough to work for Baen.)

I’d like to point out though — the point of this ramble — that I’ve found the pay off is worth it. Not the money — though I think eventually it might be. I don’t know what other people who (like Roger L. Simon) blacklisted themselves have found, but I’ve found that being able to be me and not self-censor every word took my creativity AND my execution to a new level. It’s like… before I was sleep-writing and now I’m awake. And my beta readers seem to agree.

Yes, it would still be pointless if I couldn’t get it in front of people. So I’m not suggesting everyone does this. But maybe we need more safe havens for conservative artists, where we CAN be ourselves.

Well, there’s Liberty Island. And PJM, of course! You can donate to Liberty Island here.