The Great West Wing Rewatch: 4.6 "Game On"

Joel: I remember that I was in the sixth grade when I watched my first presidential debate. I was so excited for it. Here we go, the two candidates for the president standing in the same room together. They would be able to go back and forth, compare their plans and policies to their opponents, there would be retorts and rebuttals, I couldn’t wait. I thought that for sure, the presidential debate would be the biggest moment in the campaign, after all both candidates would have to hold up to intense scrutiny, not only from their opponent, but from a thought moderator as well. Imagine my disappointment when I actually started watching the debate. This was no debate. This was just two guys politely taking turns while they made the same campaign speeches I had already heard. And everybody was nodding along like we had all agreed to pretend that this was an actual debate.

From the moment Bartlet began, I knew that this is what I wanted out of a debate. People here to debate, really debate the issues, debate ideas, a back and forth where something could actually come out of the time I spend watching it. The debate is theoretically supposed to help the undecided voters, or to sway undecided voters to a different candidate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in a real life presidential debate that would accomplish either of these two goals. It’s the kind of debate that we see in this episode that could really elevate the level of political discussion in this country, to hold people accountable to what they’ve said in the past, even to what they’re saying now. It seems like this is a much better thing to push for instead of the old nodding and smiling politely.

Chris: I’m almost jealous of the simplicity in all this, one debate right before the election and it has enough influence to swing the undecideds and a candidate’s actual words win or lose the election. Of course that would be unfortunate if one of the candidates were to just have an off night so I suppose that’s the true need for multiple debates but from what I saw in the show, it wasn’t going to matter what kind of day Bartlet was having, there’s no way Ritchie was going to win the debate. It was the culmination of what we’ve heard in almost every episode leading up to this, Ritchie was a bit of a simplistic goober that tried to make intellect was a bad thing and it’s an argument that enrages me when it happens in real life. Why shouldn’t the smartest guy win? I don’t care if a president is relatable or not to the common man, I care more if the president is going to act on America’s best behalf and take careful consideration to all facts before making decisions.

This episode featured the debut of one of my favorite characters, Will Bailey, played by Joshua Malina whose acting career began with Sorkin’s stage production of A Few Good Men and has gone onto being featured in many of Aaron Sorkin’s projects and can be currently seen in Scandal and he just began a West Wing review podcast called The West Wing Weekly. Not knowing what’s to come, when I first watched through the show a few years ago, this point got me super excited because I thought this was where Sam was going to branch off and start his own political career and eventually running for president himself. The truth of it was it was an exit ramp for Rob Lowe from the show but I still wish for the day of a West Wing spin-off show featuring President Sam Seaborn, Vice President Josh Lyman and Chief of Staff Will Bailey.

A good president doesn’t care about Chinese child laborers eating cheeseburgers.