Judging CNBC at the CNBC Republican Presidential Debate

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - The big story is that the media sucks. But that's not really news.

What I wanted to do for the third Republican debate was what we did for the first debate night: Have an article for the lower debate, and an article for the later one. Well, there's nothing more noteworthy that happened tonight than the destruction of CNBC's reputation. As Donald Trump just stated on Hannity, "it was very beautiful to watch." Basically, every candidate pulled a Newt Gingrich 2012 and made their answers about trashing how stupid the moderator questions were. And they were.
 

Just for reference, that was Newt Gingrich four years ago. Now imagine that times ten because basically every Republican trashed CNBC's idiocy. What happened was that CNBC constantly asked stupid questions when the Republicans were trying to talk substantively. Remember the Democrat debate first night? All CNN did then was ask easy soft-ball questions that let the Democrats talk about their absurd policies. 

CNBC did anything they tried to avoid substantive issues that people cared about. Like asking about Fantasy Football regulation. All CNBC did was start questions with, "Here's a problem. What government program would you do to fix the problem?" Well obviously the standard Republican answer is "The government is incompetent so why would you trust them?" And that pretty much encompassed every answer. It's true, but it got repetitive. 

The only real good moderator CNBC had was Rick Santelli with his questions towards Tea Party favourites (Ted Cruz and Rand Paul about the Federal Reserve). Look at this applause Ted Cruz got on his CNBC attack.

(Fun fact: The first version of this video that we embedded was DMCA'd by CNBC. I'm sure they didn't like it trashing them.)

And Cruz did that at the beginning of the debate and set the tone. And everyone pretty much followed suit. It was great.

Marco Rubio later attacked the mainstream media (including CNBC) as the Democrat Party's biggest "Super PAC".

Oh, of course Rand Paul gets the least talking time.
Sources: NPR people.

I mean, we attack the media all the time on KoopaTV. But like, this is the story of the night.

These guys are antagonistic. And lied at the very end of the debate...

 
By the way. For videogame-related commentary, here's why I think Bobby Jindal won the first (lower) debate: They asked about the candidates' favourite smartphone apps.

Jindal's answer? He doesn't freaking have a smartphone. High-five. Bobby Jindal is on the side of console gaming, not this mobile crap. It's a shame a certain other company capitulated, but we'll talk about that more on Thursday.

Best answer of the night, but too bad it wasn't on a question of actual importance. 'cause those questions didn't really exist.

Well, I'll still going to give my Super Contest Judgment.

Awards

• Beauty: Carly Fiorina
• Cool: Marco Rubio
• Cute: Lindsey Graham
• Smart: Bobby Jindal
• Tough: Ted Cruz

I don't really think the polls will move. Donald Trump didn't do anything impressive, but his lack of that has already been a trend and it doesn't affect him.

These judgments are pretty much the same as usual, I think. It's unclear how the field is going to narrow down with this kind of stagnation.

By the way, more on Rand Paul: The media keeps pretending he doesn't exist and just doesn't let him talk. The CNBC moderators actually said whoever gets to get "follow-ups" is up to "moderator discretion", aka "whoever the media wants as their candidate." So basically after saying that they ignored Rand's attempts to speak, and Ted Cruz took his speaking lines. The audience booed this "moderator discretion" and several other instances of CNBC's stupidity. And CNBC literally hyped themselves up as these "experts" who could get the answers America wanted that FOX NEWS and CNN couldn't.

First question where the moderators asked, "What is your biggest weakness?" Marco Rubio answered some non-answer dumb stuff, but he should've said "Drymouth" and he would've won. Bam. But nah.

Also Rick Santorum has no sense of humour, and Jeb Bush is a loser.


Ludwig is a Republican primary voter. So his opinion actually matters. He regularly bashes the mainstream news media and the mainstream videogame media.


Rick Santorum continues to be useless in the next Republican debate on Fox Business! How about everyone else?