A con­ver­sa­tion between NBC’s Chuck Todd, Repub­li­can strate­gist Mike Murphy, and Peggy Noonan, caught on video and tran­scribed by Talk­ing Points Memo:

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watch­ing. We’ll find out on your black­berry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already con­vinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state gov­er­nor world: Engler, Whit­man, Tommy Thomp­son, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys–this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And–

PN: It’s over.

MM: Still McCain can give a ver­sion of the Lieber­man speech to do him­self some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insult­ing to Kay Bailey Hutchin­son, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she’s never looked com­fort­able about this–

MM: They’re all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qual­i­fied woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qual­i­fied? No! I think they went for this–excuse me–polit­i­cal bull­shit about narratives–

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Repub­li­cans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The great­ness of McCain is no cyn­i­cism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cyn­i­cal, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.