Business Groups Backing Centrist Republicans Against Tea Party

Business groups, dismayed with the direction the Tea Party is taking Republicans, are exerting their influence by targeted political giving, putting money behind more centrist candidates. “If [candidates] come in and they just want to blow the system up, rather than make the system work, then you need to probably support someone else,” Greg Casey, head of the Business Industry PAC, told Marketplace Morning Report. The Nov. 5 election already showed some success with this strategy when a centrist Republican candidate in Alabama won a runoff election against a Tea Party opponent, after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent about $200,000 on the campaign.