West Wing Storyline Eerily Mirrors Reality

Bravo TV is currently airing reruns of The West Wing. Now THAT was a quality show. Aaron Sorkin may have been battling some personal demons during that time in his life but even so, his writing was always masterful. Particularly the rapid-fire dialogue that was a mainstay of the central characters.

When Sorkin left the show after four seasons, there's no question the quality deteriorated and I admit I watched it only occasionally during those final years. But here's the thing...watching episodes now of those final two seasons is absolutely bizarre because of the parallels to the current election.

In July of 2004, a bright, up and coming politician by the name of Barack Obama gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. It was a surprisingly powerful speech and one person watching that night was inspired to create a character based on Obama. That person was West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie.

Attie told the British newspaper, The Guardian: "I drew inspiration from him in drawing this character. He had done a great speech at the convention and people were beginning to talk about him." Read the full article here.

In a show that originally aired on Nov. 10, 2004,the character of Matthew Santos was introduced. We now know Matt Santos was based on Barack Obama. Having watched Obama for the past two years, the similarities now seem obvious.

I’ve also discovered that the character of Josh Lyman, Deputy Chief of Staff, was based on…wait for it…Rahm Emanuel, the man Obama recently named as his Chief of Staff. Now it’s starting to get a bit weird. And Lawrence O’Donnell, another producer and writer for the series says that John McCain was “one of the templates” for Alan Alda's Arnold Vinnick. The resemblance between those two is also unmistakable.

But there's more. If you closed your eyes during the debate episode, you would have sworn you were listening to Obama and McCain. It was uncanny.

Santos was the definite underdog and he came from behind to win the election against overwhelming odds. In the episodes dealing with the transition to the new administration, we see that Santos is committed to a bi-partisan cabinet. He asks his rival, in this case, Arnold Vinnick, to be his Secretary of State.

As I write this, the talk is all about Hillary Clinton being asked to assume that role which is not quite the same, but she was definitely a rival. And Obama, who is also committed to having Republicans in his administration, recently met with McCain. No word yet on what that meeting was about.

The episode that was about the VP debate had Josh & Leo discussing the fact that Santos inspired young voters. Leo said something like, "But they never turn out." And Josh replied that they hadn't had a candidate to inspire them since Kennedy and that he thought the youth vote could turn the election.

Barack and Michelle Obama, parents of two young children, are currently checking out schools in Washington DC and they are weighing the pros and cons of public versus private schools. Matt Santos and his wife, who also have two young children, did that in the episode I watched last night.

So, while these episodes may have lost my attention the first time around, I'm enjoying them immensely now.