Watching Studio60

There’s been a lot of press recently about the fact that Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chosen chief-of-staff, was a model for the character of Josh Lyman on The West Wing. From what I’ve read, it sounds like they’re talking about this Josh:

and maybe this Josh:

but, let’s hope, not this Josh.

The Josh connection is probably one of the reasons that Bravo has chosen to start airing West Wing episodes again, starting last week with the pilot. (Looking over Bravo’s schedule, it doesn’t appear that there’s a consistent time the episodes will be shown, so you’ll have to keep an eye out.) The other reason interest seems to have been stirred up in the show are the parallels between the Obama campaign and the Santos campaign, the latter of which filled the final WW season.

A few articles on all the similarities:

• “Haven’t We Seen This Election Before?” from BBC News quotes West Wing writer Eli Attie: “[Obama's key aide] David Axelrod helped explain to me how Obama viewed his race, how he refused to be defined by it. In politics people are always looking to force people into categories: What’s your slice of the constituents? What’s your political base? And it seemed that Obama was very resistant to that idea and that was a key element in his success.”

• A Slate video jumps back and forth between speeches by candidates Obama and Santos for a live comparison of rhetoric.

• Sorkin puts words in Obama’s mouth himself in an imagined conversation between the candidate and former President Bartlet, published in Maureen O’Dowd’s column back in September.

• In a short interview from 2006, Bradley Whitford described Josh’s influences: “This guy was a mix of Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulos, with a touch of James Carville’s hair loss.”