Marco Rubio is the GOP elite's Great White Hispanic Hope [2] and that's important in this era of Hispanic Hysteria. It looks as though they are grooming Rubio to be the Republican standard-bearer in 2016. So naturally they put him up to deliver the response to Obama's State of the Union message.
I watched Rubio's response in English on NBC, then on the internet I found his response in Spanish [3]. I was interested to see whether or not Rubio would say the same thing in Spanish [4]as he does in English. Well, this time, he did.
However, looking at the response as a tool to increase the Hispanic vote [5], I think it comes up short. While it is in Spanish, Rubio speaks with a Cuban accent of Spanish which is quite distinct from the Mexican accent.
Will that in and of itself make a difference? I don't know, but as it´s been pointed out before, Mexican-Americans and Cuban-Americans are different and have very different historical experiences in America.
On the real substance of Rubio's message, he makes a case for economic liberty and small government and that sort of thing. Can that message compete with the Democrats' offer of more benefits? I really doubt it.