Mom, apple pie, Fourth of July and small-town values. What could be more wholesome?

They evoke all-purpose knee-jerk goodness. But remember, they're catch phrases, not windows to reality. After barely a moment's thought, a dark side emerges.

Wicked witch-women have children, sugar-laden pies promote obesity, and sunshine patriots wrap their scoundrel-hood in flags and proclamations.

And small-town values? Because Republicans have been trumpeting Sarah Palin as the quintessential small-towner, that idea deserves special examination. She lived in and served as two-term mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, until 2002, with a population of just over 6,000 at the time. Think Waverly a decade ago.

She still lives in Wasilla and commutes to her governor's office in Juneau (pop. 30,700) - evidently not willing to move to the big city.

So what are small-town values? Are they unique to small towns? And does staying put where citizens admire those values qualify anyone for high political office?

We can all recite the values: hard work, modesty, honesty, integrity, forthrightness and being known by actions more than words.

In all the small towns where I've lived and observed, those values held sway. It doesn't mean they were followed, just admired. And if such values actually defined only citizens of small towns, we probably ought to disqualify candidates who were born and raised in cities with more than five restaurants or 10 stoplights. You were born in Waterloo? Sorry, you're not wholesome enough to run for office. Don't even think about New Yorkers.

However, I've found that those values don't apply only to Podunk residents. I've lived and worked in Boston, Charleston, S.C., Regensburg, Germany (130,000) and in Orebro, Sweden (126,000) and everyone I met in all those cities believed in them too.

Small-town values aren't unique to small towns. They're the values of neighborhoods, really, and every gathering of humans from the tiniest boondocks to the mightiest metropolis contains neighborhoods. Some contain only one or two, others, thousands. Neighborhoods make towns and cities livable.

Moreover, small towns harbor other values that aren't so idyllic. Sinclair Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize for literature, worked and lived in Waterloo for a short time. In 1922, he published "Babbitt," a novel about the suffocating nature of small-town boosterism, which he probably observed all around him.

Dinkytowners often remain ignorant of how large the world "out there" can be, and how little their town really has to offer adults beyond a few shops, fast food restaurants, summer festivals and predictable small talk. Instead, they become convinced they live in the center of the universe.

Many small towns develop into closed neighborhoods, where people define themselves as "insiders" and reject and resent "outsiders," meaning anyone who doesn't fit their neighborhood. They would never say this out loud, or even admit it, but they exclude outsiders in many ways, large and small.

At worst, insiders find ways to run outsiders out of town, especially ethnic minorities. Small towns tend toward homogeneity and they're proud of it, whereas cities thrive on multiple close-knit neighborhoods where different cultures mix without much rancor.

Cultural provincialism and racism amount to the dark side of small town values, and any small townie who's honest knows what I mean. Those who've gone into the larger world and lived in a variety of neighborhoods become aware of the tunnel vision that marks so many Smallvilles.

Put another way: City dwellers rub shoulders with a huge variety of people, activities, and ideas that boondockers never know, and that makes them wiser to the ways of the world. You don't hear the phrase "street wise" applied to residents of Hayseed.

And that's not all. When you grow up in a small town and stay there, you dare not change. If you're still hanging mostly with your high school buddies when you're 40, chances are you're emotionally stunted. Small towns offer sad human examples of Norman Mailer's dictum: "Grow, or pay more for remaining the same."

So, does growing up and staying in a small town offer special qualifications for anyone seeking high office? Absolutely, unequivocally, definitively, no.

If anything, it's precisely the opposite.