By Rich Fisher
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kwgs/local-kwgs-991118.mp3
Tulsa, OK – On today's StudioTulsa, we offer a chat with Mickey Edwards, the former G.O.P. congressman who served Oklahoma's 5th congressional district from 1977 to 1993. Last week, Edwards was a guest of the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations; we spoke to him while he was in town. On the whole, we discussed the dysfunctional if not paralyzing divide that clearly exists in Washington today between Democrats and Republicans. Why does this divide persist? And how can we get beyond it? Edwards --- whose latest book, "Reclaiming Conservatism," was published in 2008 by Oxford University Press --- says that we live in age when, unfortunately, nearly every single politician seems more focused on the next election than on the issues at hand. In this regard, Edwards also tells us about an article that he published in The Atlantic several months ago, which was entitled "How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans." (You can read that essay here, by the way --- http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-turn-republicans-and-democrats-into-americans/8521/?single_page=true.)