Editorial: Candidates should stop stumping on inane issues

“Small-town values.” “Anti-American.” “”˜Real’ patriots.”

What does it all mean?

This election has been a ping-pong match, with candidates, politicos, bloggers and the majority of the American people volleying meaningless terms back and forth, responding to one nonsensical accusation with another.

Patriotism has become this election cycle’s Christianity. In previous campaigns, candidates relied on their buddy-buddy relationship with a higher power to justify why you should be listening to them. President Bush told reporters in 2003 that “God wants me to run for president.”

Though both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain have frequently asserted their piety, this time around, it seems like everyone is concerned with who is the most earnest patriot.

This is completely ridiculous. Of course both candidates love this country. They’re currently vying to become the person in charge of it. And right now, America can be a little hard to love. She’s finicky. Her credit score is awful. Some other countries think she’s a bully, while others think she isn’t doing enough to help them.

But the presidential candidates love her anyway. We all do, in our own way. After all, we do live here.

This is why it is so ridiculous that attack after attack is made on an unseen contingency of “non-real Americans” and on people who don’t have “small-town values.”

Repeating this rhetoric is just an empty, meaningless sentiment. What would it sound like if a USAC candidate ran on the claim that they represented “small-campus values” and “real UCLA students?” That they spoke for “Joe Bruin Six-Pack?”

As many a talking head has wondered, what are these small-town values that so many of us lack? They had better not include paying your taxes, because if so, Joe the Plumber just got booted down to big-city slicker status. Is it concern for the environment or caring about the local wildlife? Then Sarah Palin is out, what with her airplane-assisted moose hunts and chorus of “Drill, Baby, Drill!” What about honesty? Urbandictionary.com defines “Biden” as a verb that means “to plagiarize,” based on a speech-stealing incident in the late ’80s.

Look, everybody makes mistakes. One of the recurring hilarities of every election is how minor mistakes in judgement become overblown into epic aberrations. Remember when we found out Clinton had inhaled?

But to accuse every single person who doesn’t live in a small town of “not having values” is reprehensible. Since when did location dictate morality?

After all, Sarah Palin, the champion of the small town, is the one in hot water for an ethical violation. What allegedly happened is that she had someone fired for refusing to fire her sister’s ex-husband. This situation is not unique to a small town, nor is it unique to a large city.

But it isn’t just the highest offices pointing red, white and blue fingers: Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) is currently under fire for implying that liberalism is “anti-American.” Then, in what can only be described as McCarthyism’s 21st century reincarnation, pressed the media to go on a “witch hunt” to find out “what it is that Barack Obama really believes” and to expose other potentially “anti-American” Congressional members.

Let’s not get totally ridiculous here. Everyone has patriotism and pride for this country, but that doesn’t preclude any doubts or concerns about America and its government. Everyone has values. Some may define it differently than others, but no one ““ save for a handful of politicians ““ would imply that you aren’t a decent human being unless your zip code has more digits than its population.

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