How The West Wing May Become the Real Thing...

[liz_marcs]

Jimmy Smits who played the fictional senator and presidential candidate Matthew Santos with the very real Sen. Barack Obama in 2005.
— Photo taken fromThe (U.K.) Guardian

The above photo is from a fun little story from The Guardian about last two seasons of The West Wing and its coincidental resemblance to Sen. Barack Obama's run for the presidency. (Read the whole thing.)

Except the "coincidence" may not be as coincidental as you think. When TWW writers were laying out the storyline for Santos's campaign, they did what they always do: They called on a real-life person working in politics to get some pointers and to consult on the storyline.

The consultant they called in? David Axelrod. Yes, that David Axelrod, Sen. Obama's long-time top political adviser and the guy who ran Sen. Obama's 2004 run for the Senate and his current run for president.

Here's a little snippet:

In the TV show, Santos begins as the rank outsider up against a national figure famous for standing at the side of a popular Democratic president. There are doubts about Santos's inexperience, having served just a few years in Congress, and about his ability to persuade voters to back an ethnic minority candidate - even as his own ethnic group harbour suspicions that he might not identify with them sufficiently.

But the soaring power of his rhetoric, his declaration that the old divisions belong in the past and his sheer magnetism, ensure that he comes from behind in a fiercely close primary campaign and draws level with his once all-commanding opponent. Every aspect of that storyline has come true for Barack Obama. Axelrod, now chief strategist for the Obama campaign, recently joked in an email to Attie: "We're living your scripts!"

What's more, the West Wing had the Republicans choose between a Christian preacher - a pre-echo of Mike Huckabee - and an older, maverick senator from the American west whose liberal positions on some issues had earned the distrust of the party's conservative base: a dead ringer for John McCain.

In the West Wing, the McCain figure emerges comfortably as the party's choice. Apparently the character was not based on the current Republican frontrunner, but was simply a function of the casting of Alan Alda.

Read the rest here.

I've only started S5 of The West Wing (thanks to judicious lending by kurukami), so I can't speak to the similarities.

So for you, a little video where the fictional Santos announces his candidacy for president. The theme of his announcement? Hope. And if the school behind Jimmy Smits looks kind of familiar, it should.

Well, I'm off to GOTV by annoying my fellow Americans nationwide tonight. I will resuming spamming the lot of you after a get home from the phonebank.

Yes We Can!

Comments

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I feel slashy all of a sudden.

[rubywisp.livejournal.com]

dude. DUDE. that would be AWESOME.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

It feels wrong to be thinky slashy thoughts about the probable next president. I mean I never would have thought slashy things about Grover Cleveland.

[rubywisp.livejournal.com]

well, no. but he wasn't hot you weren't alive then, either. ;D

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

No, but he was the first doughy looking old president I thought of. :P

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

I believe I read somewhere, however, that Vinick was intended to win the West Wing election until the death of John Spencer, who played Santos's running mate Leo McGarry. Art followed life and Leo also died, and it would've been too overwhelming to have Santos lose his VP and the election.

Ah-ha -- the source

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

In this case it was the American economy that got ill rather than the VP.

[omegar.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your candidate making it to the white house.

[chaletian.livejournal.com]

Heh I remember that article... real life is a funny thing...

AND WOO FOR OBAMA WINNING!! WOOOOO!! I stayed up till they called it, which tragically was about two hours before I needed to get up for work... :(

[matgb]

I definitely recall reading somewhere that the Repub candidate was losely based on McCain, deliberately.

I've not actually got around to watching them yet—queued on my rental site but they've not arrived yet, they were broadcast while I was TV deprived and I never caught up.

But yeah, it's cool.

There will of course be many academic papers upcoming asking if the portrayal of succesful minority candidates or leaders in the media (West Wing and Morgan Freeman, etc) made the idea a lot more palatable to those who may've previously balked at the idea. And most've em will have at least a small point.