Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shields-and-brooks-mull-gop-retirements-convention-plans Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript As an increasing number of GOP House members announce they will not run for re-election, analysts Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss possible power shifts in Congress and emerging plans for the party conventions. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.David, do you agree with Deborah Pryce that the — what she calls the thoughtful middle has been run out of Washington? DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Yes, I do, and for a whole bunch of reasons. Redistricting is part of it. The team spirit is part of it.Deborah Pryce is a fascinating example. I remember meeting with Deborah Pryce and a whole bunch of Republican moderates years ago. They knew their party was in trouble. They knew they needed to change course.They couldn't get the resolve, the muster to actually change course. And now the Republican Party is in the state it's in.Deborah Pryce is from the area around Columbus, Ohio. It's a swing district, very close. And as a result, she has run and had to face a series of tough competitions. She had to face a vicious campaign last time, where — vicious ads were run against her. She ran vicious ads against her opponent.And at one point, Pryce told me, her mother called her up and said, "I'm ashamed of the ads you're running." It wasn't the opponent's ads that bothered her. JIM LEHRER: Her own? DAVID BROOKS: It was the ads she was running on her own behalf. And at a certain point, you come to a point where you say, "It's not worth it." And a lot of these folks are coming to that point.