The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.13 "The Cold"
Joel: For the second time in the campaign storyline, Santos gets and incredibly lucky break when things seem to be at their worst. The first time was in the primaries when Hoynes got in trouble again for an extramarital relationship, and then this time a nuclear disaster happens to take place just a few weeks after Vinick talked about how important nuclear power was to the country. On top of that, the plant was in Vinick’s home state and it was a plant that Vinick pushed to get twenty-five years ago. This couldn’t have worked out any better for the Santos campaign if they had planned it. And that’s a bit disappointing to me. I know that lucky political breaks happen like this in real life, but remember, we’re supposed to be searching for Bartlet’s successor here, someone who has the skill and talent to carry forward with all the work we’ve seen people do over the past seven years, not somebody who gets lucky every now and then. And we know that Santos is smart. We know tha...