Marco Rubio reply to State of the Union address: Can he meet expectations? (+video)

For Jindal, that episode remains a lingering negative as he reportedly considers his own 2016 presidential run. Contrast that with Obama’s national debut, his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, or even Rubio’s address at the 2012 Republican National Convention introducing Mr. Romney.

Last August, Rubio arguably gave the best speech of the whole Tampa, Fla., convention. He spoke from the heart while discussing his family’s immigrant roots in Cuba and making the case for conservative principles.

On Tuesday, Rubio is expected to do the same thing: get beyond the dysfunction and ideological differences of Washington and reach Americans at their kitchen tables. Clearly, immigration reform will be an important topic. He is the most-watched member of the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Eight” trying to work out a compromise. And he has already made a major concession by endorsing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which he used to call “code for amnesty.”

Certainly we will hear about his Cuban-immigrant parents, and their hard work and struggles to make it in America. This week’s Time profile describes a voice mail Rubio’s mother recently left him, asking him to treat those here illegally – los pobrecitos, the poor things – with compassion.

“They’re human beings just like us, and they came for the same reasons we came. To work. To improve their lives,” Oriales García Rubio said. “So please don’t mess with them.”

On an array of issues, Rubio will have to walk a fine line. He will be speaking for his party, not for himself. Once the darling of the tea party in his long-shot bid for the Senate in 2010, he now has one foot firmly planted in the Republican establishment. Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky will deliver an informal “tea party response” to Obama’s State of the Union message, which could help position Rubio more in the mainstream.

Republicans know that one speech by a Latino senator can’t undo the damage of the last presidential campaign, which included talk of electric fences along the Mexican border and “self-deportation.” They also know that as a Cuban-American, Rubio does not have the automatic sympathy of the largest US Latino populations, Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans.

But they hope he can at least get voters to listen and help the GOP rebrand itself away from its image as a party of old white guys.

“Marco Rubio is one of our party’s most dynamic and inspiring leaders,” said House Speaker John Boehner in the statement announcing Rubio’s selection for the SOTU reply. “He carries our party’s banner of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity in a way few others can. His family’s story is a testament to the promise and greatness of America.”

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