The appeal of "Small Town America" is that - in general - people are more genuine and you're able to choose who you wish to live with and be around.

Since it's so close, I'll use Southern California as an example. A lot of people have a strange way of measuring status down there. For some - certainly not all, but enough to have more than one encounter - it's like their mind has been warped.

The romanticized version of Southern California is different than the reality today. Certain events have acted as markers of sorts, letting us know just how much Southern California has changed in the last 100 years. Regardless, the image portrayed in films such as Blow, where everyone is care-free, hanging out on the beach getting stoned and surfing, is what people are nostalgic for.

Outside of the Dodgers being good, not many people are longing for a return to Los Angeles circa 1980s.

For people who have been rooted in Southern California long enough to remember when the majority of Southern California was nothing more than orange grove, diversity and urbanization has not been an overwhelmingly positive experience. I don't think many people would argue Compton of 2008 is better than Compton 1914.

"Small Town America" breeds its own problems, most certainly. However, I think Badger goes a little too overboard in stating that people of different beliefs and lifestyle values can live together and everyone will benefit.

We have to work with people different than us everyday, a place where we can't pick and choose who we interact with. Your neighborhood should be a place where you can make that choice.

The idealistic extension of Small Town America is what we all think is wonderful, and it's the picture the GOP has insisted still dominates the character of our country. It's pretty, it really is: Everyone knows each other, everyone's familiar with each other's situation and supposedly cares about it, and neighbors help out neighbors, and so forth. I found that to be the case (pretty much) in Olympia and miss that aspect of it.

But it's also easy to cover things up in a small town, especially those that are a bit more isolated (like, I don't, say, certain towns in Alaska). What the writer said about diversity is true, though sometimes that's something that can't be helped. Sometimes I feel a lot of the small town values that have been so popular in the press lately are extolled because they form in a vacuum. And while working with your neighbor is great, I can't help thinking that there's a xenophobic strain to some of those neighborly relations.

Watching the RNC convention as I did last week (nothing else was on) I can't help thinking that Palin, et al are falling back on their small-town cred to rebuff their idea of the "outsider" -- which, this year, ironically includes "community organizers." The small town values are being praised now, but in two years 3/4 of the people saying this will be figuring out some way to restrict the progress of the "little people" they're kissing up to now, the ones in small towns, with small businesses, and mortgages which are becoming not-so-small in comparison. And will probably enjoy a nice lobster bisque while doing so.

I live in a very vibrant, multi-cultural community up here in Seattle, and it's got its problems, but I'm very proud of being here. It's got the community feel and sense of values I think the RNC is paying lip service to. There's a sense of identity, but far less fear of the outsider.

Really, everybody in this election should be thinking in terms of "community," since that's a much richer, more inclusive, more constructive term. Too bad the GOP has already lampooned that concept. I'm hoping Americans don't fall for that sarcastic braggadocio -- again.

--P

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