This report on the four (yes, four) Republican responses to tonight’s speech is exaggerating their significance:

This four-vs.-one approach, to some, is the result of the expanding media universe that allows many different views to be heard, reaching so many different voters. Yet others see the various responses as a sign of a divided Republican Party that cannot unite around the single idea or a single voice to respond to Obama’s State of the Union address.

The number of responses is unusual, but the fact that there are several of them doesn’t seem to mean very much. Mike Lee and Rand Paul are both speaking after the president, but it would be wrong to say that they represent different wings of the party. Lee will likely emphasize the policy reforms he has been promoting for much of the last year, while Paul will be delivering a comparable message that will reportedly touch on some topics, including national security, that Lee isn’t going to cover. Ros-Lehtinen and McMorris Rodgers are both giving responses, but while they will be in different languages their content will apparently be more or less the same. Besides, it’s not as if it will really be “four vs. one,” since all of the opposition speakers put together will have less time and will receive less attention than the president. The most remarkable thing about this is that there are this many willing to volunteer to speak when they don’t need to do so. Considering how often SOTU responses have harmed the political prospects of the people that have given them, it is a bit surprising that they can find someone to do just one. Perhaps the most notable thing is that all four respondents are members of Congress, which further cements the current GOP’s identity as a mainly Congressional party.