I don't think that's really it, Orchid. I think the comments about 'he doesn't really understand American values' and 'from Indonesia' and the like are sneaky ways of either calling him the n-word or trying to drum home the idea that he's not 'one of us.'

It's kind of depressing, but there really are certain Americans who think that if you are not from small-town Protestant America you don't understand the 'real' America. Well, that's certainly part of it, but so are people from Detroit or a Wyoming ranch or the Texas gulf coast or Maine fishermen. It's a freaking big country; I have no idea how we're supposed to settle on just one type of experience to be real, so to speak.

One of Romney's stalking horses just make some comment about Obama not 'getting our Anglo-Saxon values,' -- this despite the fact that Obama probably has more Anglo-Saxon blood than I do.

Mitt Romney's father was not born in the US. George Romney was born in Mexico because his own parents left the US to escape polygamy laws. Donald Trump's mother came from Scotland; remember all his yapping about birth certificates? But, see, those guys are white, so it's different. (You know, Scottish people are not Anglo-Saxons either; they're Celts and have done more than their fair share of fighting the English.) I'm fine with criticizing any candidate's policies; I'm not fine with sneaky and not-so-sneaky comments about citizenship.

You know, a lot of people consider Mormons to be cultists and not real Americans. Well, I'm glad that people seem to be dropping regarding Romney this because our Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for office -- something a lot of people conveniently forget. I just think we should apply the same standards to everyone.