The Great West Wing Rewatch: 6.18 "La Palabra"

Joel: For the first part of this episode we have a hopeless feeling concerning the Santos campaign. The campaign is still in third place and had run out of money. We get the message that without California, the campaign is pretty much over. On top of all that, support that they were very much depending on now looks like it’s going to another candidate. This is the perfect time for somebody to come up with a great idea. A new plan, or a different angle, something to get the attention of the voters, and to show that this campaign, without a doubt, belongs on the national stage.
Instead, Santos gets a lucky break because Hoynes gets in trouble again for sexual misconduct. I kind of hate how this plays out across the episode. At this point we know that Hoynes is a smarmy character, and we want to see the smarter, more just, flat out better, Santos triumphantly defeat him. But instead, Hoynes defeats himself and Santos lives to fight another day thanks to this deus ex machina for the campaign. We’re supposed to feel elated when the episode ends with Santos winning California. And it’s a good thing, but it didn’t come about because people voted for Santos so much as it came about from people voting against Hoynes. I get enough “lesser of two evils” in my real life politics. I want something grander for Santos than this.

Chris: This is a bit of a messy episode with every candidate sitting around waiting for the other candidate to do something or not do something and the moment somebody does anything, everyone else has an immediate counter. It reminds me of game 4 of the NLDS a few days ago between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants where the managers are trying to out manage each other by switching pitchers and last-minute pinch hitters. The end result was one misstep and the entire game collapsed. In the case of this episode, it was the campaign that did nothing that ended up collapsing with Hoynes' misconduct being brought to life after he tried to stay in New York the entire time.

Also, I do understand Santos desire to not only be seen as the signature minority candidate but when there's a bill or anything being proposed that you are completely against, it's literally your job to voice your opinion of it. Of course, that's in an ideal world and you can't control how the media spins it and that led to Josh explaining that he shouldn't have gotten in Santos' head about the spin and media involvement.

A good president wins California.