Rand Paul State of the Union

Impact

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will deliver the Tea Party's response to President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday. The rebuttal will actually be the GOP's second response, as Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will deliver the GOP's official response both in English and Spanish — in an attempt to lure Hispanic voters who flocked to help reelect Obama last November, alienated by the Republican Party's hard stance on immigration and other social issues. Paul, who rode the 2010 Obamacare-fueled Tea Party wave to become Kentucky’s junior senator, is also rumored to be a potential 2016 presidential candidate (his dad, the libertarian-leaning Representative Ron Paul [R-Texas] ran unsuccessfully in 2008 and 2012).