Believing in America as a core value -- and a means to get elected for Obama, Romney

After all this time running to lead America, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are still trying to show they really believe in America.

Both men have made the election not just about the economy or even the American Dream, but about America itself. They see a nation pessimistic about itself and nervous about its future, hardly American traits.

They see political opportunity if they can come across as the one who gets what it means to be American, the guy who restores the glory.

In the midst of their patriotic push, Obama and Romney have never overtly accused the other of being un-American.

But they spend no small amount of time raising doubts about the other’s belief in America’s promise, its workers, its resilience, its basic compact with its people.

Both talk about the goodness of Americans and the exceptional nature of America itself. They rarely concede that the other candidate shares that view.

Obama and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, have vastly different visions on how to create jobs and opportunity, and that contrast in governing philosophy is a defining choice for voters in November.

There is something to this nagging sense that America has lost its way.

Associated Press polling has not found a majority saying the nation is moving in the right direction since 2003. The richest nation on earth is divided over whether today’s children will have a better standard of living than their parents do.