December 28, 2002
President Bartlet, Please Take Me Back
By FRANK LUNTZ
cLEAN, Va. -- There is a small, humorless segment of conservative society that is now convinced more than ever that NBC's "The West Wing" is a plot, a weekly Hollywood conspiracy to overturn the electoral outcome of 2000. I should know.
In 2001, I joined Marlin Fitzwater and Peggy Noonan as one of three consultants hired to provide a conservative perspective to the show's writers.
Then, in the summer of this year, all three of us were dumped. To conservatives, it was proof that "The West Wing" hates Republicans. Not so. We were let go because there really wasn't much for us to do in the fictional White House of President Josiah (Jed) Bartlet.
You'd think I'd be relieved. When I worked for the show, my e-mail in-box would be jammed on Thursday mornings with angry notes from conservative friends demanding to know how I, a conservative, could have helped create the anti-Republican script that had aired the night before. Did I realize that millions of solid, hard-working Americans were turning off their television sets in disgust?
But I'm not relieved. I wish "The West Wing" would take me back, even though I wasn't an essential cog in the wheel of production. O.K., I wasn't even a cog. More often than not, I would sit by the phone like the lonely Maytag repairman, waiting for one of the writers to call with a question about how a "Republican" would do this or that. I did get a few of my words into the show from time to time, in the banter about polling exchanged while the characters walked from one room of the White House to another. They do an incredible amount of walking in a typical one-hour segment, so there was always a market for realistic polling banter.
If I didn't get to do much, why do I want to go back and subject myself to another grueling season of hostile e-mail messages?
As the grantors of the Emmy Awards, the civilized world and even the French acknowledge, "The West Wing" is the best-written show on television. And I love the characters, particularly President Bartlet. I don't ever agree with anything Martin Sheen the actor says politically. But when Martin Sheen as President Bartlet says the same kinds of things, it's just so, well, presidential.
Returning to the show would also allow me once more to play political consultant to a Democrat — always an interesting exercise for a Republican (and I'm cheaper than Ron Silver). And it would give me the chance to correct a few misconceptions and mistakes in the scripts.
For example, in the recent election-night episode, viewers are told over and over (I guess they ran out of polling banter after my departure) that President Bartlet won South Dakota. No way. In 15 of the last 16 presidential contests, South Dakota has voted Republican. Even when favorite son George McGovern ran, the state went G.O.P. If I were still on staff, I would have changed "Dakota" to "Carolina" or to another state that went for a Democrat presidential candidate at least once in my lifetime. I also would have told the writers that Fort Myer is here in Virginia, not in Maryland. Surely, script corrections like that would make me a worthwhile investment. For better or worse, Americans by the millions get their information about politics from "The West Wing."
With so many people watching, learning, and blurring fact and fiction, an occasional affirmative Republican perspective wouldn't hurt. After all, Republicans may represent a fraction of the population in Hollywood, but they do control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, a majority of governors' mansions and a majority of state legislative seats. Only in the fictional world of "The West Wing" do Democrats win elections these days.
Besides, if President Bush could hire Mark McKinnon, a Democrat operative, for his real-life campaign in 2000, surely President Bartlet can hire at least one Republican operative to help him navigate the world of make-believe.
Frank Luntz is a pollster and focus group moderator for MSNBC.