The NY Times reports that originally Santos was not planned to win the presidential election last night on The West Wing.
Like many political campaigns, the presidential election depicted last night on “The West Wing” on NBC would have had a different ending had it been held four months ago.
But the reversal of fortune for Matt Santos — the Democratic nominee, played by Jimmy Smits, who was the victor — had nothing to do with any shift in opinion among voters.
Instead, Lawrence O’Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos’s running mate, Leo McGarry. At the time of Mr. Spencer’s death, the plot for last night’s episode had been set: the election was to be won by Alan Alda’s Arnold Vinick, a maverick Republican (modeled a bit on Senator John McCain), whom many Democrats (including the Democrats who write the show) could learn to love.
The story also discusses the future of the cast members, including President Bartlet (Martin Sheen), who plans to enroll in college at The National University of Ireland in Galway.
