Although negotiations broke down last week, Obama still hopes to broker a larger debt-reduction deal that includes tax increases on high earners and Republican-favored cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. If a compromise continues to prove elusive, lawmakers could pass a temporary extension that delays the cliff’s most onerous provisions and gives Congress more time to work out a longer-term solution.

That’s becoming the favored path by some Republicans leery of going over the cliff.

Mississippi Republican Chairman Joe Nosef shares his Southern colleagues’ disdain for tax increases. But he stopped short of taking an absolute position.

‘‘I really, really feel like the only way that Republicans can mess up badly is if they come away with nothing on spending or something that’s the same old thing where they hope a Congress in 10 years will have the intestinal fortitude to do it,’’ he said.

Matt Kibbe, president of the national organization and tea party ally, FreedomWorks, says that going over the cliff would be ‘‘a fiscal disaster.’’ He says ‘‘the only rational thing to do’’ is approve a temporary extension that prevents widespread tax increases.

But his message doesn’t seem to resonate with conservative activists in the states.

‘‘If we have to endure the pain of the cliff then so be it,’’ said Mark Anders, a Republican committeeman for Washington state’s Lewis County. ‘‘While it may spell the end of the Republican Party ... at least we will force the government to cut and cut deep into actual spending.’’

Back where the Boston Tea Party protest took place in 1773, Morabito wonders whether Boehner will survive the internal political upheaval and says Republicans need to unite against Obama.

‘‘It looked like from the very beginning they were just going to cave to what President Obama wanted,’’ she said of the GOP. ‘‘I didn’t want that to happen. Now I'm hopeful that they’re standing up for tax-paying Americans.’’

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