The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.1 "The Ticket"
A large portion of this episode is devoted to questioning whether or not Leo is a good pick for vice president. It was an interesting choice to be sure, and I want you to try and imagine what a pick like this would have looked like in the real world. Despite spending a large portion of his life in politics, I’m not sure if anyone had ever voted for Leo for anything before this. He was chief of staff, and we know at one point he was Secretary of Labor, but both of those are appointed jobs. And the White House Chief of Staff is not exactly a celebrity. Can you name the current White House Chief of Staff off the top off the top of your head? Most people can’t which probably means the two times that the general public probably heard about Leo was when everything about his addiction came out and then when he suffered a major heart attack and had to step down. You have to wonder what exactly Leo brings to the ticket in the eyes of the voters. Not that I don’t think Leo is capable of being a good VP, but it’s an odd choice politically.
This episode also has a small moment of heartbreak when it looks like Donna and Josh are going to finally make up. We know that they have to make up at some point, because it that was never in the plan, Donna would have been on the bus to Mandyville the moment she left her job at the White House. And here we are with what looks like an ideal moment for these two to resolve their differences and reunite only to have Josh shut the whole thing down. Come on Josh, we don’t have a ton of episodes left. Why are you wasting them being mad?
And one final thought on the ISS storyline. I know that I’m blowing this out of proportion because of how I feel about NASA’s portrayal on this show, but based on the campaign storyline, this episode is clearly at least a week after the end of the last season, which means if all the time limit warnings were right in the last episode those astronauts would have run out of air a long time ago. (Ok, I’m done complaining about this storyline for real now.) 
Chris: I would really be interested in finding out when exactly they filmed the intro to this episode. Was is something they did at the very end or at least knew who was going to end up where? Or was it something they had to reshoot later after certain circumstances or just happened to luck out and not have certain people involved in that scene? I am interested to find out from first time viewers if this flash forward intro was something stuck in the back of your head for the remainder of this season and if it telegraphed some of the storylines.
This episode seemed like a natural progression from the season 6 finale, especially since the Santos/McGarry ticket was put together so hastily, no one bothered to even see if they got along or had similar views on certain topics. Ultimately, all the miscues came down to communication, once Leo and Matt sat at a table just the two of them, they were able to chip away at the unfamiliarity. And hiring spokespeople from opposing candidates within the party doesn't seem all that scandalous, especially after the convention. I feel like this is more indicative of Josh still being hurt that Donna left and didn't jump ship when Josh started the Santos campaign.
The ISS storyline is drawing parallels with the MS scandal in the earlier seasons, it's a multi-episode legal ordeal that they even brought back Oliver Babish for but ultimately, it gives the Bartlet administration something interesting for the show to cut back to so that the final season does have some focus left on Bartlet.
A good president undermines the campaign agenda of the candidate within the same party.President hungry for education reform. President gonna eat.
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