senator was tom -- was tom daschle. he was from south dakota and i was in a lot of his meetings. he ended up appointing me to a board that oversaw federal farm programs in the state, so i was involved in policy and showing up with different people. people asked me to consider running for state legislature. it was interesting because my family thought that was strange, nobody's done that before but in our state, the legislature meets for 40 days a year. you balance the budget, pass bills and go back to your jobs. it wasn't that big of a commitment outside of session, and we figured we would try it and if it worked, everything would be ok. i did that, got elected and ran for leadership right away and served as assistant majority leader in the house but that was when a lot of the pressure came to run for congress which i was not interested in doing. people asked for two years, if my husband and i would consider running for congress because we were represented in the house by a blue dog democrat. i was a republican and people wanted me to challenge that representative before she deci

who questioned if i was truly a republican just because i had attended that leadership camp that tom daschle had hosted. it was surprised by how they felt like that tainted my krep credentials to even be a republican, that i would go and spend time with democrats. announcer: and the full program is available to watch online at booktv.org.

who questioned if i was truly a republican just because i had attended that leadership camp that tom daschle had hosted. it was surprised by how they felt like that tainted my krep credentials to even be a republican, that i would go and spend time with democrats. announcer: and the full program is available to watch online at booktv.org. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america's story and on sundays, book tv bringsou the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more. including buckeye broadband. buckeye broadband. along with the television companies, supports c-span2 as a public service. >> and now on book tv, more television for serious readers. ♪ peter: >> peggy noonan's newest book is called "a certain idea of america." how did you choose what to put in? peggy: i went through just more than 400 columns that i'd written over the past few years. and i and an editor started to go through them and the ones we picked were the ones that were most fun and most alive and we