OK, this is just weird. From The Guardian, which reports that “[w]hen the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate [Matt Santos, played by Jimmy Smits] in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.”
Barack Obama
Young, handsome and charismatic member of Congress, attempts to become America’s first non-white president.
Began political career as a community organiser in a big city (Chicago) before winning first election at local level. Married, with two young children.
Faced stiff opposition in Democratic primary against occupant of the White House during previous Democratic administration (first lady Hillary Clinton)
Rivals attack him as inexperienced after just four years in Congress, but triumphs through grassroots support, inspiring speeches and message of change.
Republican opponent is veteran moderate senator from a western state, unpopular with conservative base (John McCain of Arizona).
Matt Santos
Young, handsome and charismatic member of Congress, attempts to become America’s first non-white president.
Began political career as a community organiser in a big city (Houston) before winning first election at local level. Married, with two young children.
Faced stiff opposition in Democratic primary against occupant of the White House during previous Democratic administration (vice president Bob Russell).
Rivals attack him as inexperienced after just six years in Congress, but triumphs through grassroots support, inspiring speeches and message of change.
Republican opponent was veteran moderate senator from a western state, unpopular with conservative base (Arnie Vinick of California).
Read the whole thing.
one big difference is that Santos had little national exposure and had to be persuaded by Josh Lyman to run.
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p>and I don’t think McCain v. Obama would be as polite…
…and it only made me wonder if the entire entertainment/comedy/television industry would go into a cancellation-bound crashing tailspin like Sorkin’s SUCCEEDING show….then we had the writer’s strike.
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p>One more series like this, and I’m gonna start calling him Cassandra….
As someone remarked somewhere else when this came up, if the parallels continue it’s bad news for Obama’s running mate…
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..Arnie Vinick (Alan Alda) is helping to save the planet through National Geographic specials awareness while Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) is now a vaguely corrupt head of family South Florida sugar consortium.
… from Mr. P.P.Pine is what really makes my day.
Foreshadowing maybe. And it is weird parallel. The thought always crossed my mind that Obama was Santos like.
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p>They even had the whole African-American, Latino tension enter the storyline on West Wing when a Latino policeman shoots an African-American in LA and Santos has to give speech in black church to address the issue.
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p>Studio 60 was not that bad a show but it did strike me like Sorkin never wanted to stop writing the West Wing because so much of the intrigue on Studio 60 was political. I know comedy is full of politically-inspired satire but Sorkin over did the whole Hollywood vs. Christian right tension – it got tiresome by the end.
Keep in mind that Arnie’s lobbying for a nuke plant that had some, shall we say, problems, may have done in his campaign. Could McCain fall prey to a similar fate?