Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin: "It's Over"
Candide's Notebooks / September 3, 2008
You didn't have to wait until today to know that Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan and the first Bush's former speechwriter, was nervous about Obama: he'd seduced her in his acceptance speech. And today she admitted in print, despite a misleading headline by Wall Street Journal editors, that “The choice of Sarah Palin IS a Hail Mary pass, the pass the guy who thinks he has a good arm makes to the receiver he hopes is gifted.” Then did let it all out in this exchange with Mike Murphy, off-mike, during a television appearance. Here's the full transcript and the video:

Murphy: ...because I come out of a blue swing-state governor world. Angler. Whitman. Tommy Thompson. Mitt Romney. Jeb Bush. And I mean, and these guys, this is all like how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And, IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.
Noonan: IT'S OVER.
Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good
Chuck Todd. [Unintelligible]... think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson?
Noonan: ...saw Kay this morning.
Todd: [sounds like 'she's not comfortable talking about it????]
Murphy: They're ALL bummed out
Todd: Is she really the most qualified woman?
Noonan: Most qualified? NO. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives.
Todd: yeah, they went to narratives.
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time Republicans do this, because that's not where they live, and that's not what they're good at, they blow it.
Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is "no cynicism" and this is cynical.
Todd: And as you called it, "gimmicky."