New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks with Laura Ingraham during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Republicans said after the 2012 election that they wanted to radically change the model for presidential debates in 2016 so that conservatives would do more of the question-asking than the "liberal media."

On Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the GOP got a first look at how that might go.

Talk radio personality Laura Ingraham conducted a 20-minute question and answer session with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Fox News host Sean Hannity queried Texas senator Ted Cruz, in a departure from the regular standard speeches that presidential hopefuls give to this annual gathering of activists.

Ingraham’s session with Christie heavily focused on Christie’s vulnerabilities — his recent political struggles, his volatile temperament and his changes of position — while Hannity’s briefer interview with Cruz was marked by an awkward exchange over former President Bill Clinton’s libido. And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gave an ill-advised answer to a totally innocuous foreign policy question, an unforced error.

The takeaway: Getting conservatives to ask the questions might not be as much of a pleasure cruise as Republicans think. The Republican National Committee made the change one of its top priorities, and conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt has already been named as part of a panel of questioners at CNN’s primary debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in California this September.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., Thursday, Feb. 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Hewitt is known as a tough interviewer, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush — considered the leader of the pack in the early days of the 2016 primary field taking shape — appeared on his radio show Wednesday. Hewitt asked Bush if he would be afraid of sending U.S. soldiers into combat over concerns it would be labeled “a third Bush war.”

Bush fended off the question, but it was similar in spirit to the ones that Ingraham threw at Christie on Thursday here. The irony may be that because there is no question about where interlocutors like Hewitt, Ingraham and Hannity stand on the ideological spectrum, political candidates may believe they are in for easier treatment, and will have far less ability to point a blaming finger at the media if things go awry, which in recent years has become an easy escape hatch.

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Ingraham’s first question for Christie thrust his recent political struggles into his face, while several thousand conservatives watched from the floor of a darkened convention room floor.

“This has been a rough couple of months for you in the media,” Ingraham said, noting that many observers are saying to Christie, “You’re toast.” It gave Christie the opportunity to bash — who else — the media, and particularly the New York Times, but it was still a very public reminder of the many stories about Bush’s domination of the battle for donors and operative talent.

Ingraham then asked Christie why he had signed on to Common Core in 2010, forcing him to admit he regretted doing so. She pressed even further. “Not political regrets? These are regrets, real regrets?”

“Well these are implementation regrets,” Christie said.

Ingraham’s very next question went at him even harder: “Here are words used to describe you: explosive, short-tempered, hothead, impatient. And that’s just what your friends are saying.”

Christie said he was “passionate.” If a journalist from a mainstream TV network had been asking the questions, he or she might have been getting booed by the conservative audience by this point. Ingraham was not. She went on to attempt to draw Christie into criticizing Bush on his immigration positions, and then came back to his woeful standing in current polling.

“You were a frontrunner. Now you’re near the bottom,” she said. “Ben Carson is ahead of you.”

Christie could only point out that in February of 2007 “it was going to be Rudy Giuliani versus Hillary Clinton. That’s what the polls said then. So I feel pretty good.”

Ingraham asked a few more questions. One of them came back to Bush’s current strength, and her final question attempted again to pull Christie into a back-and-forth with his likely rival for the nomination.

It was an interview chock-full of horse-race questions and attempts to spark intra-party fighting, two of the very things that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and other Republicans have complained were problems mainstream media outlets had created in the past.

Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) speaks at the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, MD, February 26, 2015. Potential Republican presidential candidate Walker told grassroots conservatives on Thursday that his battle with labor unions as Wisconsin's governor had given him the mettle needed to take on militant groups like Islamic State. (REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

Walker, by contrast, gave a pep rally of a speech to the conservative faithful that brought them out of their seats several times. It helped him continue the momentum he has built since a successful appearance in Iowa last month. But in the few moments that he was asked questions after his remarks, by American Conservative Union board member Ned Ryun, he gave a stumbling answer to a straightforward question about how he would deal with the Islamic State if he were president.

Walker said Americans want a president who does “everything in their power" to fight America’s enemies, and mentioned “confidence” as a key personality trait. He then cited his victory in a 2012 recall election spurred by pro-union activists as experience enough to prepare him for taking on terrorists.

“If I can take on 100,000 protesters I can do the same across the world,” Walker said.

Walker’s response was lambasted even by the conservative National Review. He denied afterward he was comparing Wisconsin protesters to Islamic radicals. “My point was just, if I can handle that kind of pressure, that kind of intensity, I think I’m up for whatever might come if I choose to run for president,” Walker told Bloomberg News.

And he grew combative, accusing the media of wanting to “misconstrue” his comments. But in comments to CNN and the New York Times, he also backed off the substance of his assertion that facing down peaceful political protestors engaged in the democratic process of trying to oust him from office had prepared him for fighting an international menace. “I'm just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling a difficult situation was the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with,” Walker said.

As for Cruz, he too gave a red-meat speech to the crowd. But in a few minutes of questions from Hannity, it was a digression into Colorado’s legalization of marijuana that took the senator and the Fox News personality down a rabbit hole.

“I was told Colorado provided the brownies here today,” Cruz joked when Hannity asked him about the decision to legalize marijuana. Hannity responded by joking that he had eaten the brownies. “The magical mystery Hannity hour,” Cruz riffed.

Hannity then asked for one-word responses by Cruz to the names he would throw out.

“Hillary Clinton,” Hannity said.

“Washington,” said Cruz.

“Bill Clinton,” Hannity said, and then adopted a Clintonesque southern drawl, and began impersonating the former president ogling a member of the audience. “Hey, by the way, I want to say hi to that really hot chick in row seven over there,” Hannity said, pointing into the crowd as the audience laughed. “Hey, you know, sweetheart, I’ll give you a tour backstage.”

Hannity stopped himself. “Sorry, he’s not responsible for this,” he said of Cruz, and then repeated Bill Clinton’s name.

Cruz paused, and then made a veiled reference that followed along with Hannity’s joke about the former president’s extramarital affairs.

“Youth outreach,” Cruz cracked.

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