A member of the RNC committee in charge of the Republican presidential debates said at a Colorado GOP fundraiser in Denver on Thursday night that the CNBC debate held in Boulder the night before “was hijacked by NBC,” its corporate parent, leaving the financial news network serving “as surrogates for MSNBC,” its liberal-leaning sister network.

Susan Hutchison, chair of the Washington state Republican Party, laid into the broadcasters of the third Republican presidential debate, which was widely panned — including by some of the candidates during the debate — for the tenor of the questions.

Despite being promoted as a debate about the economy, Hutchison said, “It became a character-assassination game as we watched the commentators continue to assail and assault our candidates.”

But it wasn’t the fault of CNBC’s debate moderators, who are fierce boosters of Wall Street and avowed capitalists. “Those commentators did not devise that debate,” Hutchison said. “It was orchestrated by executives at NBC.”

The next morning, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told NBC News that the RNC was suspending its partnership with the network, saying the “handling of the debate was conducted in bad faith.”

“CNBC’s moderators engaged in a series of ‘gotcha’ questions, petty and mean-spirited in tone, and designed to embarrass our candidates,” Priebus wrote in a letter released Friday morning. He said Republicans were canceling the arrangement with NBC and Telemundo to broadcast a primary debate scheduled for February in Houston.

Hutchison, a member of the RNC’s debate committee, told a group of Colorado legislators and supporters that the committee picked broadcast partners they believed would be trustworthy but got something else entirely. She spoke at a fundraising event dubbed “Celebrating Colorado’s Women Leaders,” sponsored by the Colorado Leadership Fund, the 527 organization run by House Republicans, at Mile High Station.

A veteran journalist, Hutchison was a news anchor for Seattle’s CBS affiliate for more than two decades and has lately become a favorite target of Washington state bloggers and liberal publications. “Sarah Palin minus the moose,” one magazine dubbed her.

The debate committee specifically decided not to partner with MSNBC, she said, because its “far-left, nasty way of looking at the world was not the kind of debate we wanted to have.” CNBC, however, was considered a reputable entity serving the business community.

The committee was trying to correct the mistakes of the 2012 primary season, when 27 debates turned into a chaotic “circular firing squad,” she said, leaving eventual nominee Mitt Romney bloodied by his own party. First, the RNC decided that there had to be fewer debates — just six before caucuses and primaries get under way in February, with another five potential debates after the voting starts.

But even with fewer debates — starting in August, there’s just one a month on the schedule — the RNC debate committee wasn’t happy once they began taking place. The Republican debate on CNN last month, she said, lacked maturity and an understanding of the presidential race. But it was the first Democratic primary debate, held earlier in October on CNN, that convinced the debate committee that they didn’t want MSNBC to have anything to do with questioning Republican candidates.

Hutchison said the questions came off like,“Hillary, why are you so wonderful?” and “Why is Hillary so wonderful?” There wasn’t a single question about some of the issues that have dogged Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, such as the Benghazi attack or her email security.

But when it came to the CNBC debate in Boulder, she said, the motivation to attack and embarrass the Republican candidates became clear. There were times during the debate when the moderators didn’t seem to know what they’d ask next, Hutchison charged, suggesting network staffers were busy tracking down negative material to lump into questions.

In the end, however, it backfired on CNBC and turned into something wonderful, with the candidates — particularly Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — fighting back and the audience cheering. “We had a popular uprising!” Hutchison said, adding that the candidates were united against a “common enemy.”

After addressing the Republicans, Hutchison told The Colorado Statesman she believes network executives had decided that Wednesday night’s debate would represent the entire network, since MSNBC hadn’t landed the partnership. “They lost, big,” she said. “CNBC may not recover from this a while.”

The RNC is limited in how much control it has over the debates, she conceded. The party can’t tell moderators what to ask or even control the format of the debate, for legal reasons. But broadcasters will have to answer to the public about how they conduct the debates, she said.

Wednesday’s debate was a real eye-opener for everyone, Hutchison said.

“I think there will be tremendous pressure on future broadcast entities to mind their role, which is to be objective and fair and give the audience and voters a chance to learn as much as they can about the candidate and how they stand on important issues.”

— marianne@coloradostatesman.com