REPUBLICAN DEBATERS GET THEIR SAFE SPACE

Fox Business's debate innovation: ask questions that allow candidates to give their stump speeches without fear of any follow up questions.

— Frank Rich (@frankrichny) November 11, 2015

Jonathan Martin and Patrick Healy in The New York Times:

Mr. Rubio ... repeatedly received questions that allowed him to answer with versions of his stump speech. Even he seemed unable to believe his good fortune when he was asked to make his case against Mrs. Clinton. He chuckled for a moment before unspooling a well-rehearsed argument: why he can prosecute a “generational” case against her.

“If I am the nominee, they will be the party of the past, and we will be the party of the 21st century,” said Mr. Rubio, 44.

Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post:

... the debate was largely lifeless throughout, and the lack of candidate exchanges ... meant that many of the answers offered were straight from oft-repeated talking points.

Erick Erickson at FoxNews.com:

First, Fox Business is a big winner. This debate is what all the other debates should have been.... the moderators did not try to be the stars of the show.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

In the post game Ben Carson just told moderator Neil Cavuto he and the rest of the candidates were very happy with the moderators - which pretty much tells the whole story. "Well, can I say the candidates were very happy with you guys."

After the CNBC debate, Carson said he wanted the debates to be a safe, nurturing space:

“Debates are supposed to be established to help the people know the candidates… what their philosophy is,” Mr. Carson told reporters before a morning appearance at Colorado Christian University. “What it’s turned into is a ‘gotcha’ opportunity to cast candidates in a negative light.

“That’s silly. That’s not really helpful.”

Before the debate, Fox Business's lead moderators, Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo, said they were happy to oblige:

"My goal is to make myself invisible,” Cavuto, one of three moderators for the prime-time debate, said in an interview last week. "That I’m not the issue. ... That we’re not the issue. The answers to what we’re raising become the issue."

Bartiromo sounded a similar note: “After that [CNBC] debate, I realized, I knew my marching orders. It was clearer than ever what my marching orders are, and that is to help the viewer, help the voter better understand what each candidate’s plan is; is it a realistic plan, can it work and how is it different from the next guy or gal, and that’s what I plan to focus on."

As I've said in previous posts, the Republican candidates chastised CNBC in terms strikingly similar to that Yale student's complaints about the master of her college, after the master's wife told students to just shrug off racist Halloween costumes:

As your position as master, it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students that live in Silliman. You have not done that....

It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here!

In last night's debate, Fox Business knew better than to create an intellectual space. Instead, Fox Business created a nice, safe GOP home.