If a nuclear power plant starts melting down in the continental US, I am going to be really freaked out.
A few years ago, one of my favorite shows on TV was the West Wing. I own the first 4 seasons on DVD, but I stopped watching after the 5th season. I guess I sort of lost interest in the writing. Then in 2006, after 7 seasons, the show was cancelled. Just last year I went back and watched the 7th season and was shocked about the parallels that can be drawn to this upcoming presidential election.
In the West Wing TV series, Republican Senator Arnold Vinick is running against the Democratic Congressman Matt Santos. But this fictional matchup is remarkably similar to the real life contest between Obama and McCain. Obama is a relatively young politician without as much experience in federal government as opposed to someone like McCain, who has been around for a very long time. Whereas the fictional Santos is also relatively young, having served very few terms in congress, facing Vinick, who is a spry for his age senator who has been around for decades. Oh, Santos is not black, he’s Hispanic.
Just on the superficial aspect along there are many similarities between the fictional election of the West Wing and the real life contest going on right now. But that’s not all. Vinick has trouble with the republican base because he is more of a moderate. Vinick also takes steps toward immigration reform that includes a guest worker program (much like the bill McCain took a lot of flack for last summer). The Santos campaign is historic because he is the first Hispanic to run for president, but Santos has trouble keeping the black vote. This is almost a mirror image of Obama who is historic for being black but has some trouble with the Hispanic vote.
Both Obama and Santos gave speeches about race and unity in the wake of controversy. For Obama it was Reverend Wright and for Santos it was a brown on black police shooting. The content of the speeches was different but the message was the same, that unity is achieved through perseverance, and that we still have many racial issues in this country left unresolved.
The more I watched of the 7th Season of West Wing the more I was amazed at the parallels between the show and real life. Obviously there were differences as well, especially with the policies of McCain and Vinick, but there were so many connections and similarities that it is hard to believe that the show ended years before Obama even declared that he was running for president.
In the end, Santos won the election because of a near catastrophe at a nuclear power plant that Vinick helped get approved. And since both Vinick and McCain are strong proponents of nuclear energy, should there be a nuclear power issue within months of this election, you will find me staring at whatever news source I was looking at with my mouth agape and my eyes wide.
None the less, all these connections are more curiosity than conspiracy, a couple of small coincidences mixed in with a few intelligent guesses. One thing is true, the writers of The West Wing, either by luck or skilled reasoning, pretty accurately predicted the republican and democratic candidates for this year’s election. But I think that is one of the reasons why I always liked that show; its ability to connect the world of fiction to the real world.
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