Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida declared himself “honored†to be asked to give the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Given the sorry history of partisan rebuttals of presidential remarks, though, he just might want to reconsider.
In the 47 years since Republicans hatched the idea, Rubio is the 120th officeholder to tackle what most politicians consider an impossible task: to try to top a president of the United States on a night when the perks of the office are very much on display.
“It is actually an awful job to have,†said Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who is an expert on Congress. “You are either speaking to the camera with no audience, or with an audience a media person conjured up. Either way, you look so much smaller than the president standing in the House chamber behind the presidential seal.â€
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/marco-rubio-s-state-of-the-union-rebuttal-may-be-a-tall-order-20130212