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.