Santos Wins: The Explanation...and What's Next?

When, on this past Sunday's West Wing, Democratic presidential nominee Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) defeated the GOP standard bearer, Arnold Vinick, my reaction was similar to that of blogger Rick Moore: I thought that the Democratic producers and writers of this excellent, but canceled, series couldn't resist putting another Democrat into the Oval Office.

It turns out that things were a bit more complicated than that. The New York Times reports that it had been the plan of producers and writers for Vinick to win. But that plan changed after John Spencer, who played the Dem Veep nominee, Leo McGarry, died. The Times reported:

...after Mr. Spencer died, [Lawrence O'Donnell, West Wing executive producer] said in a recent interview, he and his colleagues began to confront a creative dilemma: would viewers be saddened to see Mr. Smits's character lose both his running mate and the election? The writers decided that such an outcome would prove too lopsided, in terms of taxing viewers' emotions, so a script with the new, bittersweet ending — including the election-night death of Mr. Spencer's character — was undertaken by John Wells, executive producer of "The West Wing" and "E.R."

Strands of the previous plot line seemed apparent in last Sunday's episode, however. With about ten minutes to go in the show, we were told that two states were to be heard from: Oregon and Nevada. To get to the required 270 electoral votes for victory, Vinick (played by Alan Alda) needed to carry just one of the states, while Santos needed both of them. I told my wife, "Vinick wins." "Why?" she wondered. "Oregon might go for Santos. But there's no way Nevada votes for him," I explained. Nevada goes Republican in presidential elections and even the retirees, who might swing a vote to the Dems in other states, would go for a guy like Vinick; he appeals to the libertarian sensibilities of Nevada's brand of retirees.

But in West Wing world, in an effort to keep a character from suffering two calamities in one day, Nevada went to Santos. (That isn't very realistic, of course. It's apparent that these people ever read Job?)

Anyway, here's my prediction for what happens next on West Wing: Santos asks Vinick to serve as his Veep. They could simply ask the Electoral College voters to do that. We've never had a coalition executive branch before. It's too bad that the producers and writers won't be able to explore what that might be like.

By the way, I really love this show and am sorry to see its demise. There are five episodes to go.