Posted by
Dwayne Horner on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 1:15:24 PM
Six months ago, all the talk was the Republicans were headed for a brokered convention while Hillary had her party's nomination locked up. A strange thing happened on the way to today, roles have been reversed!
Now, what will happen with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama? HRC says she is starting to get her mo-jo back and makes the argument she wins all the "big states" while BHO says "I've got the delegates and she can't catch up." It made me do some thinking, as someone who actually watched NBC's "The West Wing," it reminds me of their their plot line at the end...a brokered convention for the Democrats.
From Wikipedia, "The Democratic National Convention has finally arrived and despite the best efforts of the White House, there is still no Presidential nominee.
Leo, as convention Chair sits down with representatives from the Russell, Santos and Hoynes
campaigns and in between the fighting tries to organize proceedings.
The potential nominees will be allowed to speak before two ballots will
take place. With no one prepared to give up ground, Leo resorts to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide the speaking order. Josh
is trying to work out where he can find the crucial votes needed to win
Santos the nomination. With the belief that Hoynes' campaign is over,
Josh asks his former boss to transfer his votes to Santos after the
first ballot. Hoynes says he'll think about it. Meanwhile, the Russell
camp receives some bad news; Governor Eric Baker, their choice for Vice President after Santos's rejection wants to talk again.
With voting in the first ballot going on, Russell tries to convince
Baker to stay on board - a Russell-Baker ticket is being touted by the
media as a potential rival for the Vinick-Sullivan Republican ticket - but Baker remains unconvinced. After announcing he'll sleep on it, Russell tells Will and Donna that he believes Baker is going to enter the race at the second ballot and try and get elected from the floor.
As news spreads of Baker's plans, the Russell and Santos campaigns
each begin to frantically tally the delegates' potential votes.
Everyone is working out where the votes are going to be won and lost -
with what seems like most of the Northeast's delegates defecting to Baker, as Baker makes his intentions known to the press.
Leo gets what is now the four candidates together and tells them the
second ballot will end in deadlock. He says there will be another
chance to address the convention before the third ballot, and urges
them to make some calls to try and decide a nominee before things get
too out of hand. As the votes are announced in the background, Santos,
Russell, and Baker are all about even, while Hoynes has a mere 102
votes.
At Russell Headquarters, Will concedes to Donna that with Baker
picking up momentum, he isn't sure they can make it to the fourth
ballot. As Donna says that maybe they should approach Josh again about
the Vice-President job, Will says that at the moment, he'd settle for a
Santos-Russell ticket. Meanwhile in the Santos camp, Josh says they
need the teachers' unions to have a shot at winning the nomination.
However, the teachers' unions are unabashedly opposed to Santos due to
his campaign promise to end teacher tenure.
Despite this, Josh still goes to see Ernie Gambelli, the head of the
Unions. He says there can be no deal without a policy shift from
Santos. When Josh returns, he is presented with a fax, detailing
hospital admittance records for Baker's wife, who suffers from depression.
Josh tells Santos to release the information; it makes Baker
susceptible to blackmail otherwise. Santos refuses. The Russell
campaign has also received the fax and a similar argument ensues
between Will and Donna. Despite Donna's best efforts, Will says he will
encourage the Vice President to release the information. With the
information out in the open, Baker's hopes of the nomination disappear.
As day three of the Convention dawns, Leo urges Josh to get the
Congressman to quit the race. Josh tells him Santos won't listen. Leo
goes to see him himself, and tells him he must step aside in favor of
either Russell or Baker, and he'll receive a chance to address the
Convention. Meanwhile, with the President at the convention site, C.J. tells the President that perhaps it is time he chose his own successor.
When Santos delivers his speech, he announces to the arena that
although he has been asked to step aside, he will not, telling the
delegates it is their decision who receives the nomination. He goes on
to denounce the use of Baker's wife's depression as a tool for
influencing the nomination. Josh is astounded by the speech, since he
believed Santos would finally quit. As Bartlet watches, he tells Leo to
find Josh.
Josh exits an elevator with a clearly irate Gambelli telling him
another meeting with Santos is pointless as Santos won't change his
position. Josh tells him he isn't going to see "his guy," and
introduces him to the President. In the fourth ballot, as the tide
finally turns, Gambelli is one of several delegates to declare his
votes for Congressman Matthew Santos."
Roll the Twilight Zone Music, sounds like Hollywood might be writing today's Democratic Script!