This past weekend, over 3,400 Americans from all 50 states descended on Washington, DC for the sixth annual Values Voter Summit. As expected, the media conjured up controversy from the event—centered around the seven presidential candidates who addressed the summit—yet a larger narrative was at play.

Foreign policy gets complicated very fast. Having lived in four U.S. states, I could discuss with you the hopes, fears, work ethic, values, worship practices and food that animate the various regions of America. Even without pulling in U.S. Census or Barna research figures, our observations would be fairly accurate—for we know our own culture and history from the inside out.

Five debates down, 10 to go. Deciding on the best candidate to match up against President Obama will continue to be a long, winding road over the next several months. It’s an exciting time, when all manner of center-right ideologies are jockeying for position.

I was late. In only my third week as a freshman at ORU, here I was in a mad rush from my dorm room on Michael 12 to make it to American History. A strange sight in the fishbowl commons area slowed my speed-walking: a dozen students gathered around the big-screen TV watching images of a burning New York skyscraper.