Ros-Lehtinen Adds To List Of State Of The Union Responses
WASHINGTON (CBSMiami) – President Barack Obama will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night to Congress. But on the Republican side, at least four responses to the presidents speech will be delivered by members of the GOP.
The official GOP response to the State of the Union will be delivered shortly after President Obama finishes his speech. The official response will be given by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the fourth-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives.
At some point after that, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who gained fame driving the government shutdown last year, will deliver what's being called the tea party response to the State of the Union.
Americans will also have the option of going to YouTube to see a pre-recorded address from Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky that is set to debut at some point after the president finishes his speech.
Finally, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) announced late Monday that she will deliver her own State of the Union in Spanish.
It should be noted that all four of the speeches will appeal to different factions the Republican Party is desperate to attract in 2014. McMorris Rodgers will attempt to take away the Democratic advantage on women while Senator Lee will be targeting hard core conservatives. Ros-Lehtinen's speech is targeted at the highly sought after Hispanic vote while Paul may be geared more towards libertarians.
Delivering the response to the SOTU is often fraught with danger. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is more remembered for his water problem than the substance of his speech and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal lost clout nationally with a bad SOTU response several years ago.
