Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

Sarah's Marathon Diary: How Would Everyone On The West Wing Vote In The 2016 Presidential Election?

Primetimer

By Primetimer
in The West Wing [V]

Recommended Posts

ProudMary

ProudMary

Quote

The cost for window replacement in the West Wing in 2016 would be higher than the debt ceiling. 

HaHaHa, yes!

I'm hoping that there are many real life Republican women in the US who will feel the way fictional Ainsley Hayes feels when walking into the voting booth next Tuesday.  Until then, I'll be with Toby "staring white-knuckled at the TV screen on election night in a complicated mix of fear and hope."  

  • Love 3
Link to comment
GHScorpiosRule

GHScorpiosRule

5 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

With my finger on speed dial to the Canadian consulate to request political asylum should I be shocked and dismayed.

Hah. Should that happen, my first phone call is to my parents for a plane ticket to India, where I can stay with them for the next four years. I'm not kidding.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
AriAu

AriAu

I'm very, very jealous. She has 22 hours of The West Wing to watch FOR HER JOB over the next week instead of sweating out whether using a non-secure e-mail server will cause us to have an unqualified, undisciplined, intellectually lazy, intolerant, temperamental, vindictive liar as president.

  • Love 5
Link to comment
Kohola3

Kohola3

(edited)
Quote

 I'm not kidding.

Neither am I.  I don't want to go back to the 50's, thank you very much, where a Great America will mean old, white, rich men suppressing everyone else including all women, people of diffferent race, color, and creed, the press, and anyone who doesn't fit the WASP mold.

Quote

...for the next four years.

We won't last four years.  Some leader with nuclear capabilities will respond to a nasty childish tweet with a barrage of bombs.

Edited by Kohola3
  • Love 2
Link to comment
GHScorpiosRule

GHScorpiosRule

4 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

Neither am I.  I don't want to go back to the 50's, thank you very much, where a Great America will mean old, white, rich men suppressing everyone else including all women, people of diffferent race, color, and creed, the press, and anyone who doesn't fit the WASP mold.

We won't last four years.  Some leader with nuclear capabilities will respond to a nasty childish tweet with a barrage of bombs.

Oh please don't make me more fearful and depressed! Trevor Noah did that with his show last night. That's it, I'm doing all MEDIA BLACKOUT until next Wednesday. That's right, I'm going to be an ostrich.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Kohola3

Kohola3

1 minute ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

That's right, I'm going to be an ostrich.

I hear you.  I haven't watched a newscast in weeks.  Have mostly confined any watching to Netflix and Amazon.  Only a week more, thank God.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
sinkwriter

sinkwriter

I definitely need to step away from the politics discussions and news, too. I feel like I haven't slept well these past couple of weeks, the closer we get to the election. I'm feeling more and more anxious, no matter how hard I try not to.

Just breathe... just breathe... 

  • Love 3
Link to comment
Zazoo

Zazoo

(edited)

This was fun, but I disagree with so much. There's no way any of these characters support Trump. I think the only one who may have jumped on the Bernie train would have been Donna, and only earlier in the series. Bernie is no Bartlet or Santos. He just isn't the same kind of candidate. Also, Brad Whitford has pretty much said that Josh was based on him, and he was a huge Hillary fan even before the cast of TWW started stumping hard for her. And finally, there's no way Sam even looks at Gary Johnson. I was amused by the idea of Hillary ultimately firing Josh though.

Edited by Zazoo
  • Love 2
Link to comment
RemoteControlFreak

RemoteControlFreak

(edited)

Interesting concept, but flawed.

1) The election is not, and never was, between just Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. If we're talking about the Primary stage, then Arnold Vinnick and Ainsley Hayes would never have been Trump supporters. They are Washington insiders and Republican party loyalists and Trump had almost no supporters from among this group. Hanes would have likely supported Jeb Bush and Vinnick John Kasich in the primary. They would both be pushed to support Trump after the Convention. Vinnick would refuse to commit to anyone. On Election Day, he'll write in his own name. Hayes would initially say she's supporting her party's nominee and would be one of the few women to defend him after the Access Hollywood tapes.

2) By the same token, few of the WW regulars would have been on Team Bernie. Bernie had almost no support from the Senate in which he has served for nearly a decade. He had even less from the Executive Branch. Josh, Jed, CJ, et al are party loyalists and will stick with a party loyalist.

3) No way in hell would Sam Seaborn ever support a Libertarian, let alone someone as ignorant as Gary Johnson. And only the supremely uninformed among our fellow Americans would support Bernie Sanders and then Gary Johnson.   Their policies and ideology are complete opposites.  The reported large numbers of millennials that went from Sanders to Johnson are doing so only because Sanders and Johnson are both outsiders who want to shake things up. Like many Americans, they pay attention mostly just to personality and rhetoric in candidates and not much, if at all, to policies and positions. Sam Seaborn obviously would not look at candidates with this uninformed simplistic view. 

Edited by RemoteControlFreak
  • Love 2
Link to comment
RemoteControlFreak

RemoteControlFreak

16 hours ago, Zazoo said:

Also, Brad Whitford has pretty much said that Josh was based on him, and he was a huge Hillary fan even before the cast of TWW started stumping hard for her. 

Josh was not based on the actor who played him.  Aaron Sorkin wrote the character with Brad Whitford in mind to play him. That's not the same thing.  Josh Lyman seems to have been written as a mash-up between George Stephanopoulos and Paul Begala.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Guest

Guest

3 hours ago, RemoteControlFreak said:

Interesting concept, but flawed.
 

Yeah, because the article would have been too short if they had stuck with "These people are all Democrats with the exception of Ainsley and Vinnick. Of COURSE they're voting for Hillary!" 

The thought of Toby defending "his" writing of the basket of deplorables line makes me giggle because I can picture him being like "But that's what they are! They ________."  I can literally hear it.

Link to comment
BW Manilowe

BW Manilowe

6 hours ago, RemoteControlFreak said:

Interesting concept, but flawed.

1) The election is not, and never was, between just Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump. If we're talking about the Primary stage, then Arnold Vinnick and Ainsley Hanes would never have been Trump supporters. They are Washington insiders and Republican party loyalists and Trump had almost no supporters from among this group. Hanes would have likely supported Jeb Bush and Vinnick John Kasich in the primary. They would both be pushed to support Trump after the Convention. Vinnick would refuse to commit to anyone. On Election Day, he'll write in his own name. Hanes would initially say she's supporting her party's nominee and would be one of the few women to defend him after the Access Hollywood tapes.

2) By the same token, few of the WW regulars would have been on Team Bernie. Bernie had almost no support from the Senate in which he has served for nearly a decade. He had even less from the Executive Branch. Josh, Jeb, CJ, et al are party loyalists and will stick with a party loyalist.

3) No way in hell would Sam Seaborn ever support a Libertarian, let alone someone as ignorant as Gary Johnson.

A couple of small things: Ainsley's last name was HAYES, not Hanes; President Bartlet was JED, not Jeb.

Link to comment
Zazoo

Zazoo

9 hours ago, RemoteControlFreak said:

Josh was not based on the actor who played him.  Aaron Sorkin wrote the character with Brad Whitford in mind to play him. That's not the same thing.  Josh Lyman seems to have been written as a mash-up between George Stephanopoulos and Paul Begala.

Fair enough.  I don't expect anyone to just believe me, and I'm not going to go looking for it to back up my assertion, but I'm quite sure I remember Brad Whitford stating in an interview that Josh Lyman's politics were Brad Whitford's politics.  

Link to comment
RemoteControlFreak

RemoteControlFreak

(edited)
14 hours ago, deaja said:

Yeah, because the article would have been too short if they had stuck with "These people are all Democrats with the exception of Ainsley and Vinnick. Of COURSE they're voting for Hillary!" 

The thought of Toby defending "his" writing of the basket of deplorables line makes me giggle because I can picture him being like "But that's what they are! They ________."  I can literally hear it.

Right. But even to consider their allegiances during the primaries, they would have all been supporting Clinton, some more loudly than others, just as Obama and almost everyone connected to mainstream Democratic politics supported Clinton.  Saying that all these characters would have supported or even considered supporting Bernie is ridiculous.  

And the article completely ignores that there were other Republican candidates in the primaries and that almost no mainstream Republicans supported Trump at that stage. Vinnick and Hayes would have been no different. 

7 hours ago, Zazoo said:

Fair enough.  I don't expect anyone to just believe me, and I'm not going to go looking for it to back up my assertion, but I'm quite sure I remember Brad Whitford stating in an interview that Josh Lyman's politics were Brad Whitford's politics.  

Which, again, is not the same thing as thing that Josh was based on Brad.

11 hours ago, BW Manilowe said:

A couple of small things: Ainsley's last name was HAYES, not Hanes; President Bartlet was JED, not Jeb.

Thanks for the correction. Sloppy typing on my part.

Edited by RemoteControlFreak
Link to comment
Zazoo

Zazoo

3 hours ago, RemoteControlFreak said:

Which, again, is not the same thing as thing that Josh was based on Brad.

 

Right.  Hence the, "fair enough."  My initial comment was an overreach.  

Link to comment
Zazoo

Zazoo

Apparently I can't leave this alone. So here's my own, partially responsive, list.

PRESIDENT JED BARTLET: "Bartlet would certainly be impressed with Clinton's intelligence and experience, as well as her understated commitment to the tenets of her religious faith."
- Absolutely. I don't see Bartlet even considering a Bernie endorsement.

CONGRESSMAN MATT SANTOS: "Matt (as he likes to be called) would admire Bernie's approach of saying what he means and focusing on policy on the campaign trail."
- Clinton is a policy wonk. She would focus on policy all the time if she could. It doesn't play well on the campaign trail, which is one of the reasons her staff is always trying to make her more likeable. It is also why she is always more popular when she's in office than when she's campaigning.

SENATOR ARNOLD VINICK: "Arnie would have been the first Republican to defect from the party to denounce Trump and endorse Clinton."
- Sure.

C.J. CREGG: She worked for Emily's List before her Hollywood job pre-Bartlet. So, yeah. She'd be with her.

LEO MCGARRY: I don't see why he wouldn't like Hillary. Public perception? His guy hid a degenerative disease, and his own alcoholism and drug addiction practically took down the administration.

JOSH LYMAN: I don't think Josh had a particular affinity for an underdog. (Toby did.) He wanted to support a candidate that inspired him- it's why he left the Hoynes campaign for the Bartlet campaign. I think he would like Hillary for many of the same reasons he liked Bartlet. I didn't even necessarily think of him as a particularly righteous liberal. Rather, he's the guy who knows how to get things done. Something he has in common with Hillary. (Still amused at the idea of him being fired though.)

AMY GARDNER: "Amy would have been on the Clinton train even before Hillary Clinton knew there was one. She would have seen this opportunity coming way back in the early 2000s and rallied the women's rights contingent."
- Agreed. Not just because she's a woman, but because she's always fought for women's issues. (Except I'm pretty sure Hillary's been on the Hillary train for a very, very long time. She knew about the Hillary train, is what I'm saying.)

SAM SEABORN: Like Josh, Sam chose to work on campaigns, or for administrations, because the candidate inspired him. I don't think Bernie is the same kind of candidate leader as Bartlet or Santos (who are actually quite different from each other). I think Sam would even want to write speeches for Hillary- he'd think he could help.

TOBY ZIEGLER: "Toby would spend much of the election year drunk, railing against Trump and the terrifying ignorance of the "basket of deplorables." (In fact, he would have written that line for Clinton and had no regrets about it.) Every time a new Clinton scandal dropped, he could be found throwing his ball against his office window. The cost for window replacement in the West Wing in 2016 would be higher than the debt ceiling. Still, he would press on, helping with debate prep, dutifully casting his vote, and staring white-knuckled at the TV screen on election night in a complicated mix of fear and hope."
- Yup, pretty solid. Except that the "dutifully" suggests that he wouldn't want to vote for her, and I think he would.

CHARLIE YOUNG: I'm not so sure he would doubt Clinton's integrity. Regarding his position on school vouchers- I'm not sure he'll ever find a democratic candidate for president who'd be in favor of them. I don't even know if he would be as a policy matter- as opposed to as a kid from DC who would have liked to have been able to go to a better school.

DONNA MOSS: Agreed, she'd be all in for Hillary. (Her younger self might have gone for Bernie at first. Maybe.)

WILL BAILEY: "Will and Josh would have jumped on the Bernie bandwagon together, but Will would have bailed earlier to join the Clinton campaign, seeing the Sanders ship listing long before Josh did."
- No way. Will stuck with the VP who literally no one wanted to be president because he is a party loyalist and he thought it was the best chance of keeping a Democrat in the White House. He thought Russell was an idiot. Hillary is clearly not an idiot, and was widely thought to be the best chance of keeping a Democrat in the White House. He would have been less likely to support Bernie than Josh or Sam would have been.

KATE HARPER: "Still, a Trump presidency might make her more wary; in particular, his flippant approach to nuclearization could be a serious dealbreaker for a former CIA agent with a heart of gold."
- This is an understatement. I have no idea what she would think about Clinton because I don't think we ever really got to know her politics. But there is no way she'd even consider voting for Trump, and I think she'd appreciate Clinton's experience on national security.

PRESIDENT GLENALLEN WALKEN: I don't really know, but I don't think he'd support Trump, and I really don't think he'd be harassing Clinton supporters at a rally. He took running the country pretty seriously during the short time he had to do it.

AINSLEY HAYES: I'm going to use Megyn Kelly as a barometer here and say that there is no way she would support Trump, ever. She worked for a democratic administration, and in defending the gang to her republican friends, she called them patriots and described them as righteous. And that was before she knew them. She wouldn't support Trump.

MRS. LANDINGHAM (RIP): There are three things I know about her. She was fiercely loyal to Bartlet. She sought equal treatment for women at Bartlet's boarding school when he was a kid, and that was the beginning of her relationship with him. She lost two sons in war. I see no reason to assume that she'd be suspicious of Hillary. (Unless someone wanted to make a Benghazi argument, but I wouldn't buy it.)

ABBEY BARTLET: "She and Clinton would, in fact, be BFFs."
- Totally. I have always assumed that the whole storyline about her going by Mrs. instead of Dr. because she thought voters would like her better was based on Hillary as First Lady. They would "get" each other.






  • Love 3
Link to comment
Guest

Guest

13 hours ago, Zazoo said:

WILL BAILEY: "Will and Josh would have jumped on the Bernie bandwagon together, but Will would have bailed earlier to join the Clinton campaign, seeing the Sanders ship listing long before Josh did."
- No way. Will stuck with the VP who literally no one wanted to be president because he is a party loyalist and he thought it was the best chance of keeping a Democrat in the White House. He thought Russell was an idiot. Hillary is clearly not an idiot, and was widely thought to be the best chance of keeping a Democrat in the White House. He would have been less likely to support Bernie than Josh or Sam would have been.

I thought Will's sticking with the VP (and going to the VP in the first place) was more out of wanting greater power/responsibility than being a party loyalist, so I'm not sure if I agree here.  I think with Bernie, he'd have been able to play a bigger role than in the Clinton machine, so I think I disagree with you on this one. 

Link to comment
Zazoo

Zazoo

1 hour ago, deaja said:

I thought Will's sticking with the VP (and going to the VP in the first place) was more out of wanting greater power/responsibility than being a party loyalist, so I'm not sure if I agree here.  I think with Bernie, he'd have been able to play a bigger role than in the Clinton machine, so I think I disagree with you on this one. 

I'm pretty sure he went with the VP to make him better, at least partially. Even if I'm misremembering that part, I know that he backed him for president because he assumed Bartlet chose him to be the presumptive nominee. Party loyalty. Also, he begged Josh to run the campain.

Link to comment
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...