Why Were There Two Different GOP SOTU Responses?



By: Daniel Horowitz

January 21st, 2015



If it wasn’t clear until now that GOP party elites have two messages – one for their voters in primaries and one for special interests – last night should have laid all doubts to rest.

While it is usually tough to read too much into an omission from a nine-minute speech, last night’s glaring omission of Obama’s illegal amnesty from the official GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union Address speaks louder than the milquetoast agenda they managed to verbalize. The sheer fact that Republicans would ignore the most egregious power grab of a modern president in their prime time speech is pretty revealing, especially considering this speech was written by top aides and agreed upon by the top of the food-chain in Republican leadership.

What is even more illuminating is what they did say in their Spanish language rebuttal (yes, this has become a permanent fixture in GOP politics).

NBC News shares this important tidbit from the speech delivered by Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a freshman GOP congressman from south Florida:

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Curbelo, delivering his speech in Spanish, called himself a son of immigrants and spoke of his parents' journey to the United States to find liberty, an opportunity to work and to contribute to this country. Curbelo said lawmakers should work through "appropriate channels to create permanent solutions to our immigration system, to secure our borders, modernize legal immigration and strengthen our economy." He said the president has supported similar ideas and "we ask him to collaborate with us to get it done."

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Putting the immigration issue aside for a moment, it is downright offensive that we now have the conservative party – the party of the individual united under God – delivering separate messages in different languages targeting disparate groups. Is this the country we have become? Why not one unified message, and if they choose to give it in various languages they are at least giving a unified message.



More broadly speaking though, this incident shows what we have always known about the GOP elephant in the room; it speaks out of both sides of its mouth – the authentic message is directed towards the special interests and the Chamber of Commerce, while the rank-and-file receive the rear-end version. While speaking to conservatives they promise to fight Obama’s amnesty tooth and nail; while speaking to targeted audiences they implicitly bless Obama’s temporary amnesty and call for a permanent one.

In the case of fighting Obama’s illegal executive amnesty, Republicans gave the peasants of their party the Plan A – the rhetoric of using the power of the purse to defund the action – just to “vent their frustrations.” Now, as Politico reports, they are already focusing on Plan B, even before Plan A receives a vote in the Senate. So much for their promise of passing the Crominibus in December in order to fight Obama on DHS funding in the new Congress. That was all in the English language version plan. The plan written in the languages of the lobbyists and special interests tells a different story:

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Top Republicans are exploring ways of escaping their political jam on immigration, with steps that could avoid a funding cutoff for the Department of Homeland Security while letting conservatives vent their anger at President Barack Obama. Among the possible Plans B’s: Republicans could pass a new bill to beef up security at the U.S.-Mexico border. They could sue to overturn Obama’s unilateral protections for millions of undocumented immigrants. Or they could pass yet another short-term DHS funding measure, giving the GOP more time to approve a strategy. Either way, Republican leaders hope to reach a deal that would allow Homeland Security funding to continue past Feb. 27, without making it appear to their right flank that they are caving to the White House.

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Notice how there is no mention of Plan C – blocking Obama’s judicial and executive nominees, which only requires 51 votes and doesn’t risk the dreaded shutdown? Also, notice how the McCaul border bill is indeed being used as a Trojan Horse to fund Obama’s actions and pass amnesty.

[excerpted, rest at link above]

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