By: Jonathan Martin

My colleague Andy Barr attended a press breakfast with Mike Huckabee this morning that the former Arkansas governor held to promote his new book, Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America.

Huckabee had some interesting observations about Sarah Palin, a potential 2012 opponent, suggesting that she didn’t earn her spurs and was more appealing to the base of the party because she hadn’t been scrutinized in the primary.  

"What John McCain did for her was to give her the capacity to sort of leapfrog over the process and get right to the center stage," he said of the GOP’s vice presidential nominee.

Unlike those, he added, who had competed in the Republican primary.

"She didn’t have to get bloodied like us. Few people on that stage didn’t get bloodied."

He did allow, though, that she did get bloodied  –  "but not by the people Republicans care about, you guys."

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