mickey edwards. >> brown: i'm jeffrey brown. an epidemic of whooping cough and briz winning whnchs i grow up. i want to be a paleontologist because i want to study reptiles and amphibians. >> i want to be an engineer and technology engineer and i'm going to have to go to mit. >> ifill: margaret warner talks to diana nyad after she was plucked from the florida straits today, ending her fourth attempt to swim 103 miles from cuba to florida. >> three single things we were up against was an obstacle, a huge tropical depression storms. the jellyfish each night i was stung badly. no matter what. >> brown: and judy woodruff sits down with former congressman mickey edwards. his new book blasts both parties for a dysfunctional government and offers solutions for breaking the stranglehold. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that a

i'm joined by mickey edwards, author of "the parties versus the people." for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> now, even senator ron wyden who worked with him to come with a second version of the health care plan is distancing himself right now after working with paul ryan. does this show to you that things aren't getting any better? >> well, ron wyden will say, i love this plan. i'm going to go sponsor it now. it's a party line thing. i can't do that anymore. you know, the real problem that we've got in washington is that people aren't going to talk honestly about the problems and aren't going to talk about getting together as americans to work on solutions. it's, let's take the party line. whatever it is. so you'll have chris van hollen here, you'll have newt here and all of a sudden all they can talk about is the other guys are bad, my guys are right. if we're going to solve any problems in this country, we have to do it as americans and get past this, my party first and -- >> well, what pick would have been in the middle? >> it's not a matt

. >> woodruff: i interviewed mickey edwards, the former republican oklahoma congressman very recently said he thinks what needs to happen is the parties need to not have so much control over who gets to run over congressional districts and once these candidates go to washington the parties have too much say over what they do and how they vote. what about that? >> they do have a lot of say and the say often happens behind the scenes in ways that are not often commented upon. like, for instance, committee assignments and climbing up the ladder within congress itself. it's a real problem in a lot of respects. >> what's the ultimate at stake here? why is it a problem if this doesn't get fixed as you describe it? >> well, the issue in the book is not liberalism versus conservatism. the issue is in the book is republicanism request w a small "r." the book assumes the legitimy and moral satisfaction of the liberal program. the question is liberalism on whose behalf? and the argument behind the book is that the democratic party should try to pursue liberalism for the entire country rather tha