If the GOP gets to have an "official response" and a "Tea Party response" to Obama's SOA...

[Ken Burch]

Why doesn't the Black Caucus or the Progessive Caucus get to have one, too?

[yeoman6987]

1. They never asked.

It is hard to do to a Democratic President. However, (hopefully this never happens) if a Republican President happens to slither into the White House again, then the two could request to give a response.

[merrily]

2. Democrats had no problem throwing Obama under the bus in 2014,

dumb at that "strategy" was.

[Ken Burch]

3. This wouldn't be about throwing Obama under the bus.

And that was the right wing of the party appeasing Tea Party racists in '14. The left had nothing to do with those tactics and denounced them.

[merrily]

7. Too literal. My point was that Democrats criticizing a Dem President isn't hard at all.

Sometimes, though, it's just not for the critic to be critical.

And that was the right wing of the party appeasing Tea Party racists in '14

I disagree. It was a lot more widespread than that. https://www.google.com/search?q=Democrats+ran+away+from+Obama+in+2014&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Extremes were reached by a couple of candidates in the South, with at least one candidate refusing to say for whom she voted and another saying outright that she had not voted for him in 2012. (They both lost.)

However, running away from him was not confined to the South. I watch an interview of the head of DNC in which Scarborough tried very obviously for an entire segment to get her to say Obama's name and she got crankier and crankier, but would not say it. And, after the segment ended, he mocked her for it. I cannot abide him, but he was right to mock her, IMO.

As for whether they were doing it to appease racists, or for other reasons, I try hard to leave things like that to mindreaders. However, doing it to appease racists would make it worse to my mind.

[Thinkingabout]

4. I am not sure others in the Democratic party needs to have a rebuttal and we do not need to

speak except to cheer on the presidents agenda. I am sure the president can deliver a speech and does not need other help.

[Man from Pickens]

5. They can if they want

Members of one party don't in practice contradict a President of the same party right after a major speech, so it doesn't happen. But there's nothing other than the lack of will to do so actually preventing such a response.

If we ever see an independent-party or third-party President, we'll get official responses from both Republican and Democrat parties, and possibly also whatever sub-factions of both parties that care to assert their own distinct policy approaches.

[Recursion]

6. If the divide remains, they probably will under the next GOP President

If the moderates are still in charge next time a Republican President gives a SOTU, and if the "populist" wing makes a big fuss, I'd be willing to bet they will also get a response.

[jmowreader]

8. Better idea: a Democratic Party response to the Tea Party response

[brooklynite]

9. Think of the good news...

...if the Republicans win in 2016 because progressives refuse to support a nominee that's not to their liking, they'll be able to offer a progressive alternative response to Jeb Bush's SOTU speech.

[AndreaCG]

10. Well said!

Couldn't agree more.