Any time a thing happens in politics, the media has “Takeaways” about that thing. And whenever the media has a bunch of Takeaways, Eat The Press gathers all of those Takeaways in one place, so that you can sate your yawning hunger for Takeaways. This past weekend, the Beltway played host to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which, by Eat the Press’ count, resulted in 62 hot, delicious Takeaways. Here is a definitive ranking of all of them.
Before we get into the rankings, here’s how the GOP’s likely 2016 presidential contenders fared in terms of who got the most Takeaways. Jeb Bush got the most Takeaways, with 8. He was closely followed by Carly Fiorina and Scott Walker — each of whom got 7 Takeaways — and Chris Christie, who had 6. Rand Paul received a respectable 4 Takeaways, followed by Ted Cruz with 3. Bobby Jindal, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum got 2 Takeaways each. Ben Carson and Rick Perry brought up the rear, with only one Takeaway each to their name.
So congratulations to Jeb Bush, King of Takeaways!
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1. The “hawks” are back.
2. In fact, the “hawks” are so “back” that “non-interventionism” is so yesterday, man.
3. That could be bad for Rand Paul.
4. John Bolton is hoping that Rand Paul will come around on foreign policy and be more like John Bolton.
5. Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal demonstrated that they think “the best way to reach the top tier of the GOP field is to climb over the backs of their rivals.”
6. The RNC’s plans to have ideological allies moderate their primary debates came into question after some CPAC interviewers proved to be a bit too softball.
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54. “I want to do it so badly,” said a thirsty Donald Trump.
55. Joe Scarborough was there, for some reason.
56. Sarah Palin did a pretty good job!
57. “Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Robertson speech was not good.
58. Republicans are way into selfies now.
59. People were tweeting stuff.
60. Other people “analyzed” those tweets.
61. While CPAC was a thing that happened, other things — things that aren’t CPAC — are also going to happen at some point.
62. Newt Gingrich explained how he would win the votes of blacks and Hispanics if he were running, which he’s not, and didn’t really do a great job when he did. I guess sometimes it gets to be a long day at CPAC and people just start indulging in Socratic exercises.
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