State of the Union: Will Rand Paul upstage Marco Rubio's response to Obama?

The Republican Party's divisions will be on stark display Tuesday night

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will speak on behalf of Republican Tea Partiers.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Does the country really need two Republican responses to President Obama's State of the Union address? That's what voters may be wondering on Tuesday night, when Obama's speech is followed by an official GOP response from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and a Tea Party rebuttal from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. You can practically hear the sound of establishment Republicans tearing their hair out, with Paul's unwelcome contribution only underscoring the party's deep divisions on a night when the GOP needs to present a unified, coherent alternative to Obama.

Paul, for his part, insists that his response is not meant to upstage Rubio's. "To me, I see it as an extra response, I don't see it as necessarily divisive," Paul told CNN. "He and I don't always agree, but the thing is, this isn't about he and I, this is about the Tea Party, which is a grassroots movement, a real movement."

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Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.