PeterDavid.net

Nationals or not, a 547's a heck of a series -- kudos to Ariel. Glad you made it back with no problems.

TWL

Leo dies, but Santos wins. He has to choose a VP: Sam Seaborn.

Santos then gets hit by scandal early in his presidency and is forced to resign. President Seaborn is the one getting out of the car at the Presidential Library flashback.

Now that would be an irony of sorts if it plays out that way.

That said, I hope you enjoyed Toronto again. Sorry I couldn't make it down there for the weekend.

Vinick as Santos' VP would seem kind of a cop out since they did promise us a clear cut winner. Not a namby pamby type of ending.

I hope Josh and Donna finally get together and stay that way. For those of us who have followed them for 7 years, we deserve that payoff.

Charlie (they finally remembered Dule Hill was in the cast) was very funny tonight with CJ.

You knew it was coming, but it still doesn't prepare you for the beginning of Leo's death.

Despite the obvious party differences, I'd actually find Vinick a more plausible VP candidate than Sam. Even if Sam somehow won that Congress spot (and I don't think he did), he's only been in office for three years, and we haven't heard a peep about him anywhere since. He's not a player. No way could Santos get away with selecting such an inexperienced candidate.

PAD, I'd agree with your theory about Josh and Donna if they hadn't taken a second ride on the carousel, as it were, in this episode. The way that they were all playful and cute after the afternoon round kind of cleared away some of the awkwardness of their first encounter.

I also think that someone has it in his/her head to wrap up this series like a Shakepseare comedy, in which everyone gets married (or at least paired off) at the end. We've got Will and Kate, CJ and Danny, Charlie and Zoey (now that we know that Charlie still exists!)...and hell, if Spencer hadn't died, I bet they were even shooting for Leo and Annabeth. It'd be strange for all that matchmaking to be going on if a Josh/Donna pairing -- the one that many fans have REALLY been clamoring for -- weren't also part and parcel of the plan.

All speculation, though. We shall see.

Oh, they were definitely shooting for Leo and Annabeth; Chenowith said as much post-Spencer's death. Me, I thought his lawyer from back during the Senate hearings on Bartlett's MS was a much better match.

I'm not clear on what happens when, as it seems from the previews (Western time zone, so I haven't seen the ep yet) Leo dies on election day. Seems there are several possibilities (assuming, of course, that Santos wins and this is even relevant);

1) Electors are still considered bound to vote for Leo as his was the name on the ballot/who they'd sworn to vote for. Leo is elected VP, and the Senate's first order of business on January 20th is to deal with Santos' nomination of a replacement since Leo cannot carry out the duties of office. In other words, it's treated the same as if Leo died on January 21st.

2) Santos says prior to the mid-December meeting of the electors that he wants Foo Doe as his VP. Electors follow this advice and enough vote for Foo to elect Foo as VP. Expect a Supreme Court case either before or after the electors meeting or both.

3) Santos says prior to the meeting that he wants Foo Doe. There's enough dissention in the ranks of the electors that no candidate gets a majority. Per the Twelfth Amendment "if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President"; said Senate consisting of the Senators elected on that Election Day plus the members not up for re-election. Which could end up with Vinnick's VP candidate being VP if the Senate is Republican controlled.

I'm also afraid they'll go with VP Seaborn (the whole bit in previews of "I come to serve the President"), which unless they'd previously established a strong relationship between Santos and him makes no sense.

Oh, and congrats to Ariel for the 547; that's a 182 per game average which ain't shabby at all.

547? Nice.

I managed to bowl a personal best 181 in a game last night.

Which I will jump for joy over, since a) I'd barely ever broken 150 before, b) I haven't bowled in a couple of months, and c) I have no idea whether I'll be able to bowl consistently enough to get that kind of score again any time soon. :)

Regarding _West Wing_, was there ever an acknowledgment of John Spencer's death in the credits? I've missed a number of episodes, but know there wasn't one in the ones that followed his death. If there hasn't been such an acknowledgement, I'd find that very odd. I can understand the need to keep the character of Leo alive, albeit off stage, but they can at least acknowledge the death of the actor.

Last week, _Smallville_ acknowledged the death of Dana Reeve, who'd never been on that show. You'd think _West Wing_ could do as much for one of their regular cast. And yes, I know Dana Reeve's significance as the widow of Christopher Reeve is why she got the _Smallville_ acknowledgement. But that doesn't alter the fact that _West Wing_ should've had an acknowledgement of John Spencer's death. So, did it?

Rick

In the first episode back after the Christmas break (episode 7-10, don't recall the title), there was a 30-second spot before the previouslies, where Martin Sheen broke character, and commemorated Spencer's death.

I'm not clear on what happens when, as it seems from the previews (Western time zone, so I haven't seen the ep yet) Leo dies on election day. Seems there are several possibilities (assuming, of course, that Santos wins and this is even relevant)...

For what it's worth, there's an article from 2004 at http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/archives/2004/09/election_nightm.html describing "nightmare election scenarios." Scenarios 7 thru 9 may best parallel what'll go on in the West Wing.

Apparently, in 1872 presidential candidate Horace Greeley died after the election but before the electoral college voted. Three electors insisted on voting for Greeley; Congress decided to disallow electoral votes for a deceased person, which is a precedent presumed to be applied to any future situation.

So it probably wouldn't be "realistic" (if that term can really be used for this TV show's situation) that the Santos-McGarry electors would all vote for Leo. Likely, Santos and the DNC would have to (quickly) decide on a replacement VP, and get the electors to vote accordingly. One possible scenario would have enough electors voting for the someone other than the DNC's designated replacement to make that person the Veep. (Governor Baker tried to get the presidential nomination from the floor of the convention. Does he have enough clout with individual electors to try something similar at the Electoral College?)

Ah, I know, I know...just wait and see what happens on the show.

I'm also afraid they'll go with VP Seaborn (the whole bit in previews of "I come to serve the President")...

Maybe, but I just took that bit from Sam to be a kind of restatement of the assertion "I serve at the pleasure of the President" that we'd occasionally hear from the cast in the Sorkin days. A nice bit of characterization, if that's what it is...

ATK

Sam doesn't actually say "serve".

Sam doesn't actually say "serve".

Right. Isn't it something like "I'm here for the president" or something like that? In any case, I think there's just as much reason to take that brief comment in a preview as characterization (Sam, perhaps egotistically, thinking that President Barlett may need another friend around with Leo's passing) rather than an indication that Sam's gonna be the Veep.

But for some reason, I'm more excited to see Mary Louise Parker back on the show, if only for a little while...

I don't watch "West Wing," but the mention of "Smallville" compels me to mention that they have always been very good about this sort of thing. They also commemorated Sam Loeb's passing, despite him never working on the show (his dad did, of course).

Josh and Donna: didn't like the way they got together but I guess it makes sense. I would have less problem with Vinick as VP then I would Sam. Hell, Josh as VP makes more sense.

In regards to Sam, he better have been a POW. There is no good explanation that I can currently think of why he wasn't there for Leo's heart attack or at least a mention when they were mentioning Mallory who was never actually there. He wasn't there to help Josh elect Santos? He wasn't there to help Toby through all this? It was literally like they grafted the Sam-Toby friendship onto Josh and the Josh-Sam friendship onto Toby and called it a day.

Nice to see Charlie freed from the dungeon (I saw him and blew my mom's eardrum out by screaming He's alive)

It is an interesting question where does everyone else go from here. You'd think some of them would continue in another Democratic white house. (Just as I would assume some people kept their jobs from Reagan eight year term to the Bush I term)

Its weird that just about everyone assumes that even if Santos wins they will be out of jobs. Lets say Josh is Chief of Staff. He wouldn't want Charlie and at least the support staff (Margaret, Bonnie, Ginger, etc.)

The goofiest thing is that Donna probably ends up as the same position she was before - Assistant to the Assistant Chief of Staff (Lou) unless she is made Press Secretary.

Guess all this would be for another thread but whatevers. Not looking forward to the next couple of episodes but looking forward to see how they handle a man who is most definately missed.

Until later
John

I'm hoping that Vinnick will win the election but I'm pretty sure that, despite Leo's death, the producers are going to stick with their original plan of having the Democratic candidate (Santos) be the victor. As I recall, the plan was for Vinnick to be ahead during the campaign until the fallout from the nuclear plant accident in his home state made the race more even, then the actions taken by his increasingly-desperate campaign managers to improve his chances would actually backfire and cost him voters, thus leading to a Santos victory. From what I've seen, I don't think that the producers were willing to allow John Spencer's death to change the outcome that they wanted. Based on the blurb for tonight's episode ("Vinnick disagrees with his campaign team"), I predict that said campaign team will attempt to use Leo's death to their advantage but their strategy will backfire, offending voters and causing enough of them to vote for Santos.

Personally, I prefer Vinnick to Santos. With no disrespect intended towards Jimmy Smits, I've found Alan Alda's Vinnick to be more like Martin Sheen's Bartlett in terms of being an "idealistic leader." During the campaign, Vinnick has shown more integrity by saying what he believes and admitting when he's been wrong while Santos has (more often than not) come off as somebody who is more willing to do what Josh tells him to do to win. Vinnick's decision to NOT try to use the info about the child that Santos was secretly supporting (because she was supposedly the child of his "deadbeat dad" brother) and his "answer all questions" press conference just made me feel that he, more than Santos, was a worthy successor to Josiah Bartlett.

My own preferred scenario for who ends up running the West Wing goes like this: Vinnick and Sullivan win the election but a skeleton in Sullivan's closet comes to light, forcing him to resign(?) before he's sworn in as VP. Vinnick then uses that opportunity to ask Santos to serve as his vice-president.

Don Campbell

I enjoy reading your comments about conventions. Any conventions coming up that you would like to tell your fans about before they happen?