Note to GOP Leaders:

Here's a thought: Try listening to the Base. You won't get far without us.

AP: GOP Road to White House May Start in Tenn.---

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Some of the Republican Party's presumed presidential hopefuls will be in Memphis this March to meet with party activists and try to gain momentum for their campaigns.

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference will meet March 9-12 at the Peabody Hotel.

A number of presumed candidates, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, are scheduled to attend and speak.

Also confirmed are Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, another possible presidential candidate, and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

"I'm the only keynote speaker they could find who's not running for president," Alexander joked.

Two dozen others have been invited, including party heavyweights John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Karl Rove, and many will attend.

Let me see:

John McCain---Call him R.I.N.O. He has no chance. I wouldn't vote for him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger---Call him a baby R.I.N.O.. Plus, he wasn't born in this country, so he can't be president. I don't favor changing the CONSTITUTION for him. Perhaps Winston Churchill, but not Arnie.

Rudy Giuliani---Pro-Choice, adulterer, and from New York. I might vote for him in a pinch, but he isn't my favorite, despite his excellent record on crime. Perhaps we ought to send him to Iraq or our own border.

Bill Frist---Where has he been? I haven't heard or seen him out in front, fighting for the Conservative Cause. He's been too quiet, too soft, too un-confrontational.

Romney, Huckabee, and Alexander---I don't know much about them, other than the odd news tidbit.

The bottom line is that for anyone to win the nomination, he (and I do mean "he") has to prove he's willing and able to stick with the Conservative platform and not go wandering off the ranch like President Bush. We expect a true Conservative. I don't want to campaign for or vote for a namby-pamby R.I.N.O. If I wanted that, I would have voted for John McCain in 2000. No thank you.