Daily Caller
Major networks refuse to cover Rand Paul’s tea party response
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul delivered the tea party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night — but even if you were watching any of the major television networks, you wouldn’t have been able to see it.
Unlike President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and the official Republican response from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Paul’s speech was watchable only through online streaming.
“I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C.,” Paul said at the beginning of the address. “The state of our economy is tenuous, but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known.”
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One of us!
I’ll make another mug of ginger-peach macha tea and drink to Rand Paul!
MelonCollie on February 13, 2013 at 12:38 PM
Had I known they weren’t going to air Rand’s speech I would have made a point not to watch the others.
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 12:38 PM
If the Tea Party is a 3rd party, they should cover it. The Tea Party has enough supporters to justify it. However, the Tea Party is currently just a group within the GOP, and the GOP shouldn’t get two responses.
segasagez on February 13, 2013 at 12:44 PM
May they all go to Hades, especially Fox.
Schadenfreude on February 13, 2013 at 12:45 PM
I wouldn’t expect MSM to cover it, but I was disappointed it wasn’t run on FNC.
Blaze TV is the only coverage it was allowed.
petefrt on February 13, 2013 at 12:47 PM
Fine, but the only reason I watched the two establishment speeches was to be fair and to compare and contrast with Rand’s response. They should have notified us in advance they weren’t going to air his response and saved me all the time I wasted listening to establishment propaganda.
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 12:52 PM
Eh, I think it’d have been a bad precedent to set. It’s always been the SOTU, then the opposition response. If you start getting subgroups involved then things get messy. Keep in mind, if the GOP basically gets 2 10 minute responses on the national airwaves now, then the Dems would be entitled to the same when the Republicans have the White House.
LukeinNE on February 13, 2013 at 12:53 PM
Well, it would be difficult for major networks to justify covering two GOP responses to obama’s address. Rand Paul is GOP Senator, and the Tea Party is part of the Republican Party, not an actual political party. I just wish that Rand Paul had given the official GOP response, instead of Rubio.
Pork-Chop on February 13, 2013 at 12:54 PM
Ha, they would have an hour’s block of opposition groups wailing away. One is enough for both sides.
thebrokenrattle on February 13, 2013 at 12:55 PM
They should have notified their audiences in advance.
Next year I’ll be boycotting the SOTU coverage on TV and will only watch the tea party response.
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 1:00 PM
Both sides of what? We had two establishment speeches by the corrupt ruling class and no response.
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 1:02 PM
Come on guys. When a Republican finally wins back the White House do really want to see the ‘Progressive Caucus’ response. The DNC response will be bad enough.
Lance Murdock on February 13, 2013 at 1:03 PM
I have to admit, though, Stossell’s show was great and I’ll be watching his SOTU show again next year!
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 1:03 PM
Well FOX had a choice, they could cover Rand Paul, or they could run Juan’s mouth. They chose Juan.
Red Creek on February 13, 2013 at 1:04 PM
I have to agree, I think the networks covering Paul’s speech would have set a bad precedent. Next time around, the Green Party is going to want to get national coverage for their speech. The Socialist Party of America would too. Once they weren’t the party delivering the State of the Union, of course…
Shump on February 13, 2013 at 1:06 PM
The State of the Union doesn’t require any response whatsoever. If it actually was a speech about the actual state of our union. And even then, it wouldn’t take an hour. The state of our union sucks right now and things are looking grim. Less than 5 seconds. I just laid it out for everyone in simple words.
ButterflyDragon on February 13, 2013 at 1:09 PM
Yes.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. People will eventually catch on to the smoke and mirrors of the traveling salvation show. When results don’t match the sales pitch, their own words will become destructive to them.
Mimzey on February 13, 2013 at 1:36 PM
Rand Paul delivered a response on behalf of the Tea Party Express, a single group, not a recognized major political party. I agree with other commenters that the networks had no obligation to cover a second response.
The real issue here is why Rand Paul wasn’t picked to deliver the official GOP response. Paul’s speech was substantively better than Rubio’s and was delivered better, too.
Outlander on February 13, 2013 at 1:37 PM
Fair enough, but I wish they would have said so ahead of time because I wouldn’t have wasted my time watching their stupid SOTU propaganda. I’m just glad I DVR’d it so that I could skip through the Sinnunnu interview. I hate that guy, he was responsible for a lot of the shenanigans at the Republican National Convention in Tampa and is a bad man.
FloatingRock on February 13, 2013 at 1:46 PM
I doubt hearing them would make much of an impact since I don’t their policies any different from Obama’s.
Maybe their tone would be more whiny or race-bating? That’s about it though. And sadly there is large enough amount of people in the country would love to hear that type of speech.
Lance Murdock on February 13, 2013 at 2:24 PM
Here’s the problem: not all radical leftists are obvious about it like Pelosi and DWS. The Democrats are not brain dead. Whoever they’d send out for that sort of thing would not be howling leftist policy positions. They’d do what Obama did: utter a bunch of meaningless platitudes about fairness and so on. The Democrats are never honest about what they want to do because they know there’s little support for it, with a few exceptions. They’ll be very specific about what they want the minimum wage to be upped to, but they’ll never, EVER come clean about what they think a “fair share” for the wealthy to pay is.
tl;dr: If you think the Democrats would use free national airtime to expose their true intentions, you’re kidding yourself.
LukeinNE on February 13, 2013 at 2:35 PM
How about we don’t air the tea party response, nor the republican response, nor the state of the union speech itself?
Do people still watch these things, other than hardcore political junkies who need their fix?
RINO in Name Only on February 13, 2013 at 2:47 PM
Why should they cover it?
CorporatePiggy on February 13, 2013 at 2:59 PM
I’d be ok with scrapping the response, it’s always overshadowed by the president anyway. The SOTU should stay, imho. It’s a long standing tradition, it only takes an hour a year, and I think the president deserves a chance to lay out his agenda for the next year to the nation.
LukeinNE on February 13, 2013 at 2:59 PM