WASHINGTON — The Tea Party was back in Washington on Tuesday — and at the center of its chanting crowds and their “Don’t Tread on Me” signs, Rep. Michele Bachmann was back leading the charge.

The Tea Party had gathered here to rally opposition to the Affordable Care Act, just as the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the law’s most controversial aspect, the mandate requiring all citizens purchase some form of health insurance.

For Bachmann, it was a return to her wheelhouse — before her failed presidential campaign, she was a Tea Party darling who made her name as an anti-“Obamacare” firebrand, leading rallies and marches with speeches just like those she gave Tuesday.

“I’ve been involved in this issue before the bill passed,” Bachmann told MinnPost. “I lead 40,000 Americans here to Washington, D.C., to protest the bill passing in the first place. I’m also the first member of Congress to introduce the full-scale repeal of Obamacare. … If this bill stands, this will be that we are choosing to not recover and go on financially. This will tie us down and weight us down.”

Bachmann spoke to a large Americans for Prosperity rally in a park next to the Capitol, promising that the Supreme Court would rule against the health care law and bring about “the end of the crown jewel of socialism, which is socialized medicine.”

But if it doesn’t, Bachmann warned of the dire consequences that would follow: crippling debt, expanded government overreach and the election of a “health care dictator” as president.

The speech was as significant a campaign rally as Bachmann has held since the end of her presidential run, both in style — she entered and exited the stage to Elvis’ “Promised Land,” a song she used to launch speeches during her campaign — and in substance.

“Power comes from us, not the marble building behind us,” she said. “Now the Supreme Court will hear from us, and Congress will hear from us, and they will all hear from us come this November … and we will tell them: it is the full-scale repeal of Obamacare and nothing else.”

Activists were optimistic about their prospects before the high court.

“I think there is jubilation for the hope of it being called what it is, and the fact that [Congress] does not have the right to mandate us, as individuals, to buy a product,” Tom Melonic, a manufacturing agent from East Auroua, N.Y., said. Melonic carried a sign (with Bachmann’s signature on it) reading, “Justices- Judge Obamacare from the bench … on this side of the Atlantic!”

“I really am hopeful, like all of us, that our justices will see that — that they’ll abide by the Constitution and see that.”

Activists: Bachmann should have stuck it out

This was Bachmann’s audience, the brand of grassroots Tea Party activists her presidential campaign tried so hard to energize last summer and fall. Republican voters on the campaign trail were quick to sing Bachmann’s praises as a leader among conservatives, but rarely would they commit to giving the third-term congresswoman their support in the voting booth.

But in Washington on Tuesday, many in the Tea Party said they had been pining to vote for her.

“I was very disappointed that she didn’t” continue her presidential campaign, New Jersey resident Rita Frusco said. “I think she’s 100 percent excellent, she really is. She’s for the people. She’s very sincere.”

Bachmann was mobbed by supporters looking for photos and autographs for 20 minutes after her speech. Many said they’ve attended other health care rallies in Washington, often with Bachmann at the microphone.

O.P. Ditch of Maryland came away with a Bachmann autograph on his sign. Ditch said he’s backed the Tea Party since it began — three years ago next month — and called Bachmann “definitely one of the leaders, if not the leader” of the movement.

“She’s always awesome,” he said. “She knows the topic, for sure. It’s too bad she didn’t continue her campaign.”

This was Doug Baker’s fourth D.C. health care rally. Afterwards, he approached Bachmann with a homemade pitchfork that he called his “patriot stick.” Its handle is decorated with the signatures of fellow Tea Party activists, and on Tuesday, he added Bachmann’s.

“I’ve been here three years for her, I send money to her campaign and I wish she was my congresswoman,” the Chester, Va., native said. “I’m very sorry I live in Virginia. She dropped out of the race [before I could vote for her], but she was my candidate. ... The men don’t seem to have the gonads like the women have now.”

Drawing Democrats' ire

Bachmann is not without her detractors, of course. The AFP rally was Bachmann’s second of the day — she spoke to a group of Tea Party activists marooned in a sea of Affordable Care Act supporters outside the Supreme Court building Tuesday morning.

The law’s supporters chanted wildly during speeches from Bachmann and other lawmakers, completely drowning them out at points. Bachmann got the biggest applause from the Tea Party crowd, but drew jeers when she walked through the crowd of protesters back to the Capitol. One demonstrator walked alongside her, waving a sign advocating a single-payer health care plan at Bachmann and her aides.

“These are the people who benefit from socialism,” Bachmann said. “That’s not what we believe.”

One of Bachmann’s DFL challengers, Brian McGoldrick, put out a statement accusing her of an “absolute lack of leadership.”

“This kind of rhetoric is not what the people of Minnesota’s 6th District want in their representative to Washington,” McGoldrick said. “Michele says, ‘…we are divided as a country.’ She should know. She’s the one doing the dividing. One can argue, that’s all she’s been doing the past six years.”

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry