After a century of Presidential extra-constitutional activism that’s reached a new peak under the administration of Barack Obama, the nation is signalling it’s time for a change. The will of the country, as evidenced by the calls for Constitutionally Limited Government coming from those of us in the Tea Party movement, is to elect a President who, in domestic matters, will just get out of the way. On matters of foreign policy, we are looking for a President who will defend our sovereignty, as specified in the Constitution.

How does the current crop of Republican aspirants stack up ?

Ron Paul, of course, meets the standard of getting out of the way on domestic matters, but his isolationist views don’t square with the Constitutional requirement to defend our sovereignty.

Rick Santorum’s social agenda calls for a more intrusive federal state in those areas.

To my mind, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and John Huntsman all advocate varying degrees of federal intrusiveness in the domestic arena–nowhere near Obama’s level, mind you, but still beyond this tea partier’s comfort zone. In addition, Huntsman sounds a bit isolationist.

That leaves Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann.

Both Cain and Bachmann advocate policies that are quite consistent with non-interference in domestic policies and defense of our sovereignty in the international arena.

The mainstream media is reporting that the Tea Party movement is enamored of Rick Perry, but he has weaknesses in two areas. His 2007 position advocating mandatory Gardasil inoculations of Texas school girls is not consistent with the “get out of the way” sentiments on domestic policy, and his apparent support for open borders fails the test of defending our sovereignty in the international arena.

Despite these two significant weaknesses, Perry has one critical advantage over both Cain and Bachmann. The office he’s occupied for over a decade–Governor of Texas–is constrained by limits imposed on executive authority in the Texas State Constitution.

Whether it’s those constitutional constraints or Perry’s natural philosophy that has led him to largely stay out of the way on domestic economic policies in Texas, the results have been the same. Non-interference in business by the executive branch of state government there has helped give Texas the best record of job creation in the country by far over the past decade.

Perry’s rise in the polls may be evidence of that old maxim: It’s better to be lucky than good. Perhaps Perry is both. We’ll be watching this closely as the Presidential campaign continues over the next year. All this is to suggest, once more, as has been previously suggested in this space, that a Voices of the Tea Party e-book that offers a guide to the 2012 Presidential contenders would be most welcome.

Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor of the Voices of the Tea Party e-book series and co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter and the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition. His new  e-book, I, Light Bulb: A Death Row Testimonial, was published earlier this week. His new book, Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement, will be published by Broadside Books in spring, 2012. He can be reached on Twitter at @michaelpleahy .

Wednesday, in the least suspenseful press conference of the political season, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich announced that he is running for President. Gingrich’s announcement, which was greeted across the country with a loud yawn, points again to the need for a Voices of the Tea Party e-book that rates the 2012 Presidential contenders, as Jon Friesch and Conrad Larson have suggested in this space previously.

Lacking such a guide currently, I’ll offer my own view of Gingrich’s candidacy from a tea party perspective. Despite his best efforts to associate with the movement for well over two years, Gingrich is not a tea party guy.  He deserves credit for volunteering early on to co-sponsor the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party through his group, American Solutions.  But from a tea party perspective, it’s been all down hill since then for the former Speaker.

Who can forget his insistent and unapologetic endorsement of the famous RINO candidate, Dede Scozzafava, in New York’s 23rd Congressional District in the 2009 special election? Then, of course, there’s his continued support for ethanol subsidies, which even in Iowa does not ring true with tea party supporters who oppose giving tax subsidies to politically connected industries. And who can forget his unusual proclivity to join hands with such liberal icons as Nancy Pelosi and Al Sharpton in those dreadful “We Are the World” television commercials that promote the notions of man-caused global warming and advocate more Big Government in education?

Newt’s biggest problem with the Tea Party movement, however, is Newt Gingrich himself.

His natural style of speaking is the one-sided monologue, reflecting his training as a Phd. in History. The track record of the only president in American history to have a Phd.–Woodrow Wilson–was one of promoting Big Government and ignoring the Constitution. This does not recommend that particular professional background to those of us who support the limited government ethos.

Newt’s problem with us stylistically is that he wants everyone to know he’s the smartest guy in the room. When he appears before tea party groups, he simply doesn’t listen to views other than his own. He’ll temporarily stop talking while the other person speaks, but he doesn’t listen to what they’re saying. He’s merely tolerating their use of his time until he can demonstrate, when he reclaims the microphone, why the audience needs to hear his brilliant and unique “vision” for America.

I’ve seen Gingrich’s vision, and I’ve got some news for him. Many of us in the Tea Party movement are not all that interested in hearing it again, because it lacks consistency. We’ve heard enough lectures from Speaker Gingrich over the past decade. As for me, I can go well beyond November, 2012 without hearing another one. Others may have different views, but from this corner of the Tea Party movement, the message is loud and clear:

No thanks, Newt.

Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor of the Voices of the Tea Party e-book series, co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter and the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, and the author of an upcoming book on the ideological origins of the Tea Party movement. He can be reached on Twitter at @michaelpleahy .