House Republicans aren't accountable to the people, they're accountable to the Tea Party

In It’s almost like the Tea Party won Steve Kornacki looks at the ongoing tussle between the White House and Republican members of the House over the Sequester, the debt ceiling, etc. He concludes with the following:

It’s an outcome almost no one saw coming a year ago, and one made all the more remarkable by the fact that the most recent election seemed to represent a rebuke of the GOP and its embrace of Tea Party fiscal values.

I think Kornacki and many others are making a fundamental mistake in their understanding of the members of the Republican Party in Congress. Thanks to gerrymandering most Republicans in the House pretty much occupy safe seats. The greatest threat they face is not at the next election but in the preceding primaries. That's where the Tea Party, with its organisation and money, is at its strongest. House Republicans who do a deal with Obama that helps the nation but puts them offside with the Tea Party may well lose endorsement at the next election. On the other hand, not doing a deal no matter what the consequences for the nation could see them re-elected. What option do you think they'll take?