The Midterms

"The Midterms"

"The Midterms" is the 25th episode of the The West Wing and the 3rd episode of the second season.

Plot

This episode is fast paced, taking course over 12 weeks at the end of the 106th Congress, and focusing exclusively on campaigning for the Midterm elections. Josh is out of the office for the entire time, but communicates over the phone with the staff. Sam persuades an old law school friend to run in his home district for the House, but when the friend is accused of racism (due to picking white juries for black suspects during his tenure as D.A., and membership in an all-white fraternity while he attended college), Leo pulls the plug, cutting off money and cancelling a visit by the President. Sam, powerless to offer the support that he promised, must watch as his friend's campaign is destroyed.

Toby is obsessed with finding a new way to lean on terrorist groups. Specifically, he wants groups like the KKK to have to register with the FBI. Bartlet consoles Toby by saying that the shooting has frustrated both of them because it was not merely an assassination attempt; it was a lynching attempt against Charlie. Charlie has been having a hard time coping as well, which strains his relationship with Zoey until the end of the episode.

President Bartlet is distracted: he becomes obsessed with an old political foe (an opponent in his first race for the House) winning a seat on a local school board back home, focusing more on the school board race than on the Democrats' attempt to win back the House. The President reveals to Toby that he is obsessed with the school board race because his old foe is a bigot, and the attempt on Charlie's life has brought his opponent's bigotry to the forefront of his mind. He confesses his frustration that he cannot remember how he beat the foe in a long-ago election.

On the night of the election, the White House hosts a reception for talk radio hosts. Amongst them is the very conservative Dr. Jenna Jacobs (a caricature of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, played by Claire Yarlett). When the President joins the reception, he explodes in a whirlwind of Scripture quoting to attack her position against homosexuality, ending with the admonishment, "In this building, when the President stands, nobody sits." The embarrassed Jacobs hesitantly rises, and the President tells Toby that this is how he beat his old foe.

At the end of the night, some of the staffers visit Josh at his home. The results of the election come in: twelve incumbents all lost their elections, resulting in the Republicans maintaining control of Congress.

Apparently turning their attention to the rights of hate groups such as the one responsible for Josh's shooting, the staffers marvel at the notion that a democracy protects the rights of those who would destroy it. They consider the notion then respond with the refrain, "God bless America."

Trivia

• The biblical tirade that President Bartlet unleashes on Dr. Jacobs is based on an anonymous email that Sorkin received. He notes that every effort was made to find the original author of the email to give them proper credit on the episode but searches came up empty.

• In the seventh season episode The Ticket, it is revealed that Congressman Matt Santos is in his third term. This means that he must have been elected for the first time in these midterms.

• Sam points out that his former law school classmate-turned-congressional hopeful attended Oberlin and Duke Law School. Later in the episode he is dropped from the list of candidates receiving top-priority from the White House based in part on the racial implications of having been a member of an all-white fraternity. Not only does Oberlin College have no fraternities or sororities, but the school was the first liberal arts college to grant degrees to black students - a legacy that continues with Oberlin's student body, considered one of the most progressive and liberal in the nation.

External links

• The West Wing Episode Guide
• Letter to Dr. Laura – Many of the president's biblical references in his comments to Dr. Jacobs are thought to have come from a letter circulated online in early May 2000.