GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann has so far drawn larger crowds in Iowa than any other candidate, according to at least one news broadcast — and her ties to the Tea Party seem to have something to do with that (h/t Drudge and RCP).

She’s right, of course. Those who disagree with Tea Party principles will of course imply Tea Partiers are gauche and unimpressive. But ongoing attempted dismissals of the Tea Party as extreme or uneducated actually just serve to underscore how effective this organic movement of “ordinary” Americans has been — and how integral Tea Party support or opposition can be to an election or reelection effort.

As Townhall.com’s Kevin Glass recently wrote so eloquently:

Maybe it’s a result of not going to enough parades on the Fourth of July, but many on the Left continue to misunderstand what conservatives are all about. In one fell swoop, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne accuses conservatives of being anti-democratic, historically ignorant, intellectually shallow, inherently violent and possibly secret racists. …

Memo to the left: tea partiers aren’t anarchists. They’re not violent revolutionaries. They’re not premised on the idea that Barack Obama is somehow an ‘illegitimate’ president. They’re ordinary working Americans who can see the profligate spending of the federal government and want to harken back to a time when states had more power, the federal government had more checks on it, and the federal government wasn’t carrying entitlement liabilities that will bring down the economy in the near future if something’s not done.

Yep. Sounds like a group whose support is worth having.