According to interviews from 2005, Sorkin and the actors based their fictional Presidential race on the West Wing as follows
- Democratic minority nominee Jimmy Smits: based on Barack Obama
- Republican moderate nominee Alan Alda: based on John McCain
- Democratic nominee's Chief of Staff Bradley Whitford: based on Rahm Emanuel
If the show had continued for a few more seasons, we'd already know how Obama's first term will turn out.
This is fucking stupid, look at him. He's stuttering, he looks terrified. The whole thing come across like a petulant joke and a waste of everybody's time.
Yeah I want to see some gallows on the Whitehouse Lawn... I doubt we'll see any major purges though, but Rahm and Co. will probably do some attack dogging two years into the administration to motivate Bush anger again. That's when we'll see some major corruption charges and what not. And don't think there won't be a lot of shadowy politicking and favor-doing to get guys on their side to vote our way.
On the plus side of things, democrats haven't been bringing up charges on a lot of people just because they know that Bush would pardon them. By waiting, they ensure that the sentences will actually stick.