I think Barlet explains this to CJ…he wasn’t supposed to win the nomination. He got in at Leo’s urging, to make a splash and keep the other candidates honest. Then he kept winning. I think it started out as, “Well, this isn’t going anywhere” to “Ooops, too late to say anything now.”
The very end of “Two Cathedrals.” Bartlett gets the question about running for re-election, puts his hands in his pockets and smiles. The composition of that moment – the US flag through the rainy window in the background silhouetting Bartlet.
Sadly, I can’t find that moment on YouTube.
I’ve been watching clips from the show due to this thread. This one was funny at the time but it was only the fourth episode of the series. It works even better now because we know the characters so well.
Because I’m another anal retentive WW fan: She asked Sam to look into adding her grandfather’s name to the pardon list. He had been convicted of (executed for?) treason, but her family thought he was innocent and her father was terminally ill. Plus, in school Sam had written a paper defending him. But it turned out he actually was a spy.
“Have you ever heard of a woman named Shaba Demsky?”
(Nancy showing Sam the classified file – even redacted – always bugs me. But I love WW, so whatever.)
A great scene and a great character. Which lead to a major plot hole down the line, which was the replacement Vice President fiasco. They didn’t have to accept the list of lame losers that the Republicans gave them. They only had to present the Admiral as their VP. There would not be any way in Hell that he would not be confirmed. The entire Republican Party would have taken a huge black eye if they tried to block him. And the Admiral was all about service. He would have stepped up if the President asked him.
Why are you assuming Fitzwallace was a Democrat? If he was a Republican, naming him as a Vice President would set him up as a likely win against whoever the Democrats ran in the next Presidential race.
They had mentioned him as a replacement for Hoynes on the re-election ticket before Hoynes disgrace. Not being a politician, it’s not likely Fitz would have sought the Presidency. It’s not like the VP is a lock for nomination anyway. Bob Russell proved that. Could they have chosen anyone worse that Russell?
Wait wait! Did they denounce them?? I need to know, I never saw this show!
I’m sure it was just a throw-away part of an episode mentioned prior… still…
…I liked that one part of one episode where Allison Janney was actively defending the administartion’s policy decisions… on a message board. 
I believe it was season 1 episode 1. Off camera, Josh had managed to anger some powerful conservative Christians. The pcC’s had been asked to the White House for a peace conference with the senior staffers and they came with many demands. Jed was attracted to the conference by [del]all the shouting[/del] the frank and honest discussions and corrected one of the pcC’s declaration that honoring one’s parents was the 1st commandment. He then explained to the delegation that he loved his 12 year old granddaughter very much, she was very bright, and in a brief interview for some teeny bopper magazine very recently she had made some brief comment that some conservative Christians took offense to. So some cC’s had sent her a doll with a knife stuck through its chest. The senator/congressman member of the pcC’s started to say that they had no connection with the group that did that and Bartlett shot him down by saying “But none have you have ever denounced their actions” or something to that effect and then, the line Beelzebubba quoted. As they were bum rushed out of the room on the way of leaving the White House, the vcC politico told Leo that this could be fixed and Leo told him to Go ahead, fix it.
Never mind, here’s a clip of that scene.
Well, per IMDB Chenoweth is 4’11" and Janney is 6’ so it doesn’t actually require any cheating.
I’m relatively sure people in the military can’t run for any kind of public office. They couldn’t even vote until 1986.
I’m going to feel really dumb when someone explains this joke to me.
Even more now than then I can’t watch this scene without crying. Fantastic and gut wrenching.
As I recall, the Republicans gave Bartlet a list of Democrats they would accept as Vice President and Russell was chosen as the best of the lot. As you noted, the idea was that all of the people on the Republican list were really bad so none of them would be a credible candidate to succeed Bartlet.
I felt it was an unrealistic moment. This occurred in the series after Bartlet was shot and after he temporarily stepped down when his daughter was kidnapped (and after Bartlet knew he had MS but this was not public knowledge). You’d think that Bartlet would realize the importance of having a reliable Vice President and would have defied the Republicans over the issue.
That reminds me of the set of scenes where Josh has decided to participate on a message board — LemonLyman.com or some such thing — with disastrous results and CJ blasting him for his stupidity.
It was Secretary of State Berryhill whom President Bartlett most wanted to put in the VP spot. And it was specifically because a Vice President Berryhill was seen as a shoe-in as a successor for the Bartlett Administration.
Republicans were first to voice their “concerns” which frustrated but didn’t surprise the Bartlett Administration. What came as a surprise was that Democrats were next to object. No prominent Democrat wanted a strong VP because they each had their own ambitions and they did not want there to be an heir apparent to Bartlett.
It was when the Bartlett realized that they would not have support from Democrats that they decided to choose someone from the weak list.
Wrong. Okay, I couldn’t vote when I was in Nam, but that was because I wasn’t old enough to vote. Or to buy a beer in the airport lounge in San Francisco on my way back home.
Fitz would have had to have retired to become VPOTUS. But I’m certain he had his 30 years in so he would have gotten his full retirement benefits anyway. Matter of fact, I think he’d have gotten them while serving as VPOTUS.
Not a joke. People serving in the military can’t run for office while they’re in the military - Fitz would have had to resign first, leaving a stable job he’s obviously good at and deems important to seek a job he’s not sure of getting where he’d play second banana anyway.