I agree with nearly everyone who thinks so: It’s VERY early in the presidential nomination process. But we need to be absolutely clear about something: Just as Republicans want to BADLY beat President Obama in 2012, the conservative base of the Republican Party wants one of our own to do it.

Although they desperately didn’t want to, the establishment seems to be lining up behind Mitt Romney as their standard barer. We cannot be split up again and let another milquetoast moderate get the nomination.

So we need to hear from the conservatives in this race, and in order to give them serious consideration we’ve got to know they want to be in the race. Sarah Palin, Rick Perry the ball is in your court. We’ve got great conservative candidates to choose from (Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, even Tim Palwenty). You two specifically have to decide if you want to be in this race because we need to come to a consensus of who is going to take on the establishment candidate. We need to hear your ideas, we need to see how you do on the stump and for people like Palin, we need to see if she can overcome some of the objections to her being a candidate in the general election.

The conservative is going to need the backing of a big chunk of the base in order to overcome Romney. We need to start hearing from these candidates so we can make a choice.