Obama vs. McCain and Santos vs. Vinick

Interesting post comparing the potential McCain vs. Obama match-up to the fictional election in the last season of The West Wing.

How’s this for a political plot: Good-looking congressman in his mid-40s, married with two young children, known for his inspirational speeches, comes from far behind to clinch the Democratic nomination and face an older, more experienced centrist Republican. If he wins, he’s America’s first non-Caucasian president.

That's the basic plotline that had Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) as the fictional Republican nominee and Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) as the fictional Democratic nominee. It's also a pretty spot on description of the current state of affairs (except Obama is a Senator not a Congressman). The juxtaposition is very interesting to consider and I love anything that involves The West Wing but I see two problems with the comparison.

1. On the show it is Santos who is the fighter pilot with the military background. It was as if they wanted to model him as a young John McCain.

2. It literally took a nuclear meltdown for Vinick to lose on the show. I took issue with this at the time and I'm guessing that given Obama's propensity for verbal missteps - it will be the Democrat who has a figurative meltdown in real life.

I could see myself voting for Matthew Santos.

Barack Obama? Not so much.