We love love love the show "The West Wing" and once school started slowing to an end began another marathon, starting with season 1, and are now on season 2. I love the characters; especially the president, his wife, Charlie and Josh. I personally enjoy that the First Lady was once Rizzo from Grease. I love the authenticity of the people fictitiously leading our nation. I know it's jokingly called "The Left Wing" and for good reason, but I love it for the drama and wit, not the issues. As I look over wikipedia for the background trivia, (because I'm weird like that), I found this amazing piece that eerily compares the elections of 2008 to the West Wing's 2006. It's like the writers of "The West Wing" had insight into the future, or some serious leaks from behind the "wings" that told the show exactly those that would be running for office...on both sides. Jed Bartlet was, in my opinion and others, a personification of who the Democrats wanted Bill Clinton to be.....smart, powerful, funny, compassionate and faithful to his wife & daughter(s). Check this out...
Similarities to 2008 U.S. presidential election
Similarities between the fictional 2006 election and the real-life 2008 U.S. presidential election have been noted in the media: young minority Democratic candidate (Matthew Santos on the show, Barack Obama in real life) has a gruelling but successful primary campaign against a more experienced candidate (Bob Russell on the show, Hillary Clinton in real life) and chooses an experienced Washington insider as his running mate (Leo McGarry on the show, Joe Biden in real life), whereas the Republican contest is determined early in the primary season with an aging maverick senator of a Westernstate being the nominee (Arnold Vinick on the show, John McCain in real life), defeating an ordained minister as the closest competitor (Reverend Butler on the show, Mike Huckabee in real life), and then selecting a socially conservative running mate from a small Republican state (West Virginia Governor Ray Sullivan on the show, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in real life).
Writer Eli Attie called David Axelrod to talk about Obama after Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech and says that he "drew inspiration from [Obama] in drawing [the Santos] character," while actor Jimmy Smits says that Obama "was one of the people that I looked to draw upon." Writer and producer Lawrence O'Donnell says that he partly modeled Vinick after McCain. Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is said to be the basis of the Josh Lyman character, who became Santos' Chief of Staff.
