Hooray for the GOP candidates for sticking together and fighting back against arrogant moderators.  It was a great to watch and necessary for the base to know that the days of being nice and genteel are over.  We are not going to play games anymore with Democrats dressed up as reporters.

The CNBC debate is also a message to Hillary Clinton.   

In other words, the GOP candidate in 2016 is not going to turn his (or her) cheek when she plays the gender card or whatever other distraction comes up.  Furthermore, the 2016 nominee is not going to sit back and watch a CNN moderator bail out a Democrat, as happened in 2012 over Benghazi.

With all due respect to Senator McCain (a war hero) and Governor Romney (a great businessman), this GOP group plans to be assertive and challenge reporters when they ask biased questions.

The CNBC moderators were so bad that even Bill Maher beat them up: "Oh my god did I just hear Ted Cruz say something awesome that I agree with? Yes. The media is even stupider than the pols. Who's on first?"  Stuart Rothenberg piled on: "Wow. CNBC is really blowing it tonight."

There was so much the moderators could have focused on.  

For example, the news about the economy is horrible.  The 3rd quarter grew at 1.5%.  Why didn't CNBC focus on that terrible number and ask some questions about economic programs?  I was hoping to hear about that.  Wasn't the theme of the debate "your vote, your money" or something like that?  Isn't CNBC supposed to be a business news network?

Also, what about the economic impact of having Russia take over the Middle East?  How will that impact oil prices?

What about the impact of regulations?  

Or the economic state of black America in the 7th year of our first black president?  What about the lousy living conditions in our inner cities, run by the Democratic Party?  Does any candidate have a plan to revive the inner cities after 50 years of Democrat rule?

Instead, we got questions about a company that Dr. Carson was associated with, another stupid question about a Trump bankruptcy, a condescending statement to Senator Rubio about his personal finances, and even the NFL fantasy league.

It raises the question: whom did these moderators clear the questions with?  Did they do any editorial analysis of their questions?  Are these people at CNBC that out of touch with reality?

We can do punditry about who won or lost.  We can start the debate about who gets out or stays in.    

It's clear to me that the GOP sent out a message last night: they plan to fight and challenge Hillary Clinton's record, from her ownership of the Obama foreign policy to the Clinton Foundation and the bad economy.  And they are not going to sit back and take media bias anymore!

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