The Santos Factor
Steve Benen spies a parallel between Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden and Matt Santos’ selection of Leo McGarry as a running mate during the final season of The West Wing. There really are a somewhat freakishly large number of parallels between the Santos-Vinick race and the Obama-McCain matchup. It’s worth noting, though, that it’s not all coincidence. As Jonathan Freedland pointed out in a perceptive Guardian article some months ago Santos was actually modeled in part on Obama. Eli Attie, a writer on the show who’d previously been a speechwriter on the Gore campaign, was interested in Obama and called up David Axelrod to get insights on Obama’s approach to help borrow some material for the Santos run.
As Freedland says, we’re looking at “a bizarre case of art imitating life - only for life to imitate art back again.”
34 Responses to “The Santos Factor”
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August 24th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
The whole election the West Wing was freakish close to the current race; not just the veep selection, IMO.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
A friend, who was stationed abroad during most of the Democratic Primary, responded to the news of the Clinton campaigns inner failings by saying:
August 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Uh, Leo, as I recall was a chief of staff, a staff man. He’d been Bartlett’s campaign manager. I really don’t see how he’s all that much like Joe Biden, who has been a senator for 30 years. That little subplot was nonsensical anyway, as the choice made no sense– Leo brought nothing to the ticket except a whole lot of “old pol” baggage (he was already advising the campaign), and I thought it was implausible in the extreme. It was like Bush choosing Andrew Card for Veep (not that his actual choice made a lot of sense).
Biden, who has not only served in the senate and chaired major committees, ran from president several times. He has nothing in common with Leo except presumably his age, and he’s a perfectly normal age for a vice president.
This is really like a Jonah Goldberg comparison– makes little sense, but has that all-important pop culture reference. TV rules!
August 24th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Who would want to? That show stunk after Season 4. Maybe Mark Penn lost because his taste in TV was too good?
August 24th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Does this mean our country is getting cancelled just after Obama is inaugurated?
August 24th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
“Uh, Leo, as I recall was a chief of staff, a staff man. He’d been Bartlett’s campaign manager.”
Yes, but the back story is that he had served as a cabinet secretary in some previous administration. He was more than just a campaign manager.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Panjin,
Not Leo, but senator Arnold Vinick.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Who would want to? That show stunk after Season 4.
Seasons 4 and 5 were weak, but it made a huge comeback by the end. Season 7 was one of its best (the live debate episode aside, of course).
Leo brought nothing to the ticket except a whole lot of “old pol” baggage (he was already advising the campaign), and I thought it was implausible in the extreme. It was like Bush choosing Andrew Card for Veep (not that his actual choice made a lot of sense).
I think it was modeled more on Bush choosing Cheney. Leo was a former cabinet member and an old party-hand. He also represented continuity with the Bartlett administration.
Anyway, if McCain loses the election because some nuclear power plant melts down in Arizona, and Biden suddenly dies on election night, then I’ll start getting spooked.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
If this is true I hope Biden will not die on election day.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I said the same thing on February 21, 2008: http://mhollick.typepad.com/homodox_a_blog/2008/02/life-imitates-a.html
August 24th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Another funny entertainment-mainstream-media thing I saw recently was a PC game sold at Target that was sort of like Sim City, except you run a presidential campaign.
It looked kind of funny/cute, but I’m skeptical of a lot of things nowadays and figured it was likely enough that it would have some propaganda that gut built into it somehow (for example, they make in inordinately hard to win the election if you don’t appeal to conservative “red meat” causes, or something like that) which of course would make it a lot less fun.
In this day of constant TV cop shows on all the main corporate TV channels, of course the TV drama series about the war on terror that pops up is about an unrealistic, heroic, torture-employing CIA agent, instead of a criticism of any of the (highly criticizeable) policies, of course. US TV is just a more subtle Triumph of the Will.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Matt, I served with Leo McGarry. I knew Leo McGarry. Leo McGarry was a friend of mine. Matt, Joe Biden is no Leo McGarry.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Thanks!
Slate.com first brought this up on February 27:
http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1434027921
But I was hoping someone else would bring it up again b/c the similarities don’t stop there.
1) Bartlett marries his daughter off in his last year in office just like Bush did.
2) Russia invades one of the former Soviet Republics prompting an international crisis - although on the show it was Kazakstan instead of Georgia.
Needless to say I won’t be making any trips to California in the next few months. = )
August 25th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Let us be wary: the writers had slated Vinick to win that race.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:38 am
Another funny entertainment-mainstream-media thing I saw recently was a PC game sold at Target that was sort of like Sim City, except you run a presidential campaign.
We played with something like this in 11th grade social studies in 1990 on whatever platform we had (I think an apple, possibly a Mac)
August 25th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Yeah, Leo was former Secretary of Labor, and a bigwig in the party when he asked Bartlett to run. I think he’s more like Dick Cheney, who was also former Chief of Staff (life imitates art again!) I don’t follow the inner workings of the Bush White House all that closely, but nothing’s given me the impression that Andy Card has anywhere near the influence of Leo McGarry.
The similarities between Biden and McGarry seem to be: both older, both insiders. Not exactly a close parallel. I suppose both have the Irish Catholic thing going, too. It’s not exactly eerie, but added with the other similarities of the campaigns, I think you have to give the WW writers some props.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Of course, the closer parallel is Bush’s selection of Cheney.
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