UPDATED 19:50 PM EST, February 21, 2013
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twice burned, Republicans are treading carefully around tea party groups as they pursue a Senate majority that slipped through their fingers in 2010 and 2012.
"You'd have to be an idiot not to prepare" for primary election challenges from the right, no matter the state, says Rob Jesmer, who was executive director of the GOP Senate campaign committee when flawed, conservative candidates captured primaries, only to lose winnable races in the fall.
