As reported earlier, the morning session of the Values Voter Summit was dominated by the so-called second-tier Republican presidential candidates.

 
The afternoon session again highlighted the ideological bankruptcy of the top contenders (even though none of them spoke), but only because it demonstrated that some of the conservative movement’s best and most motivational leaders aren’t even running for president.

 
Second tier candidates Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul opened the session, both delivered strong and inspirational speeches – and for the first time, I thought that perhaps we’ve been ‘missing’ something all along. When given a full opportunity to articulate a policy vision, both of these men not only made a lot of sense, they were given a chance to present a much clearer picture of their agendas.

 
Duncan Hunter has been the softest voice in the campaign thus far, but not today. Hunter took control of the audience, which wasn’t an easy task in front of the somewhat sleepy post-lunch crowd.

 
Hunter made several emphatic points, the most forceful his discussion of Iran, and his promise to never allow the country to build a nuclear weapon. Does that imply that he’ll use the military to invade Iraq’s neighbor? It’s impossible to say, but the Values Voter audience seemed to appreciate Hunter’s aggressive and reassuring stance.

 
When he turned to discussing Israel, several people with Israeli flags began waving them (along with American flags). Hunter brought the crowd to its feet when he said “Israel should not give back one inch of territory.”

 
Again in the afternoon session, when the discussion turned to the pro-life and immigration issues, you could feel the energy in the room. Hunter introduced his litmus test for judicial appointments: “If a judicial candidate can look at a sonogram and tell me that he doesn’t see an unborn life, I will not appoint that candidate to the federal bench.”

 
On immigration, he regurgitated a story he’s offered in several of the debates, touting his building of a alien-proof fence, and that if someone manages to get over it, ‘sign ‘em up for the Olympics.’

 
Overall, Hunter’s aggressive foreign policy is a bit frightening in the waning days of the Bush Administration’s grand nation-building experiment, but his leadership is inspiring, and was well appreciated by the Values Voter audience.

 
Ron Paul followed and delivered by far the most policy intensive speech of any of the candidates. Ron Paul is everything that blank and boring Fred Thompson is not – he’s animated, direct and to-the-point, and specific to a fault.

 
Particularly instructive was Paul’s description of why he opposes abortion – because he’s witnessed the inhumanity of the procedure. Paul vividly spoke of how he saw a crying, newly aborted baby basically ‘discarded,’ and left to die. There was a gasp in the room, but why paper over the issue?

 
Likewise Paul touched on his limited government philosophies, and said that solving the nation’s problems isn’t really all that complicated – we just need to follow the Constitution. “Freedom really works,” he said forcefully. Paul cited Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, and defined the ‘pursuit of happiness.’

 
“If you work, the fruits of your labors belong to you.”

 
Unlike all of the other candidates thus far, Paul also touched on the need to preserve national sovereignty, which is being infringed by our entangling foreign membership in the UN, as well as various trade agreements such as NAFTA.

 
Paul is almost too specific. He shows his intellectual side by reeling off an impressive list of failed governmental programs and policies – but the message is sometimes buried underneath the weight of words.

 
Both Hunter and Paul appeared to speak without notes or a prepared text, which again set them apart from some of the earlier candidates (especially those in the top tier).

 
It’s literally a world turned upside-down when you realize that the best and most thoughtful conservative candidates are not the ones you see in the daily news reports, or on top of the polls.

 
A quick look at the schedule for the afternoon showed that there were no more presidential candidates set to speak – which at first glance, seemed kind of odd.

 
That being said, the remaining speakers presented a side of the conservative movement that we don’t often see, and was refreshing in the sense that it gave an impression that the grassroots of conservatism is alive and well.

 
First there was a presentation by Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, who urged conservatives to pray, show up, and continue to advocate.

 
Sears offered the case of Emily Brooker as an example, the Missouri student who fought against her liberal college faculty and won.

 
Following Sears was the show-stopper of the day (Newt Gingrich was a close second). Conservative activist Star Parker put into words with a healthy dose of life’s experience to explain how she came to see the light – how the government’s policies had literally ruined her life until she saw through the lies the left was telling.

 
“I will not compromise,” she repeated time and again.

 
Parker said the government is waging a war on religion, and secular humanism in society has destroyed the family.  

 
The audience was riveted the entire time she spoke.

 
Rabbi Daniel Lapin had the unenviable task of following Parker, and did a credible job discussing the role of the Bible serving as the foundation as our society. “Politics is nothing more than the practical application of our deeply held values.”

 
Former Senator Rick Santorum delivered a very inspiring speech on ‘cultural conservatism,’ and even provided a blueprint on how to dispel media myths about what conservatives really believe.

 
Santorum was soft spoken, yet still very powerful in his presentation – particularly in describing an exchange he had with Hillary Clinton on the Senate floor over the issue of partial birth abortion.

 
Santorum articulated the value of life better than any other speaker, and you have to think he’ll re-surface in electoral politics again at some point. Or at least we should hope so.

 
Newt Gingrich finished up the afternoon session, beginning with a recitation of statistics that his American Solutions group had gathered from a national poll of American values.

 
Gingrich was brimming with ideas, as he always is, and there was a tangible sense of sadness that he’s not part of the presidential field – if for nothing else, he stirs the debate pot. He was forceful and passionate about the need to incorporate history into the nation’s curriculum, and correctly pointed out that we can’t understand the issues facing our country without a thorough grounding of history.

 
He concluded with discussing the role of God in America, and said the Founding Fathers never intended to keep God out of public life – reading lines from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address that are engraved on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial.

 
It was a very impressive afternoon full of discussion on many issues that conservatives hold dear. This was a set of conservative visionaries that you don’t always see on TV, but demonstrated the practical value of conservative philosophy. One theme that came across repeatedly – ‘We’re right, and if we keep fighting, we’ll win.’