I often remark to a friend that I feel like I’m in a TV show of my life or somebody should make a TV show out of the more amusing conversations that I have. I never really expect world events to follow the path of TV shows I’ve seen (I don’t actually pay attention to many TV shows anyway), but this election season certainly seems to be going exactly the same way as season seven of the The West Wing. This has been remarked on by others before me, but something John McCain said today makes me think that the real-world TV show in which I am living may not end anytime soon.

The seventh (and final) season of The West Wing starts with young, charismatic Matt Santos challenging the Democratic party establishment and going up against several candidates with many more years of experience. The Republican contender, Arnold Vinick, became the presumptive nominee very early on in the race with a reputation for being a reasonable, liberal Republican. After a long battle with the incumbent vice president, Santos wins the Democratic nomination in a dramatic convention fight.

Compare that to the 2008 presidential election, in the real world. Our election season started with young, charismatic Barack Obama going up against tall odds and going up against many more experienced candidates. Few people expected him to win! John McCain became presumptive nominee months ago and, at the beginning of the race, he had a reputation for being a trailblazer and being a reasonable, liberal Republican. McCain has largely squandered that reputation (particularly the reasonable part), but the similarities are striking. According to this New York Times article, The West Wing’s writers even used McCain as a model for Vinick! The battle for the Democratic nomination didn’t go all the way to the convention, but it got pretty close. There was certainly no shortage of drama either.

All of that could be put down to coincidence, but sometimes I wonder if party strategists are planning this race by looking at old scripts. Today, I saw this news article about John McCain putting his support behind nuclear power and calling for 45 new nuclear reactors. In The West Wing, Santos wins the election largely because of Vinick’s support for nuclear power. A technical failure nearly leads to a meltdown at a nuclear plant Vinick pushed to get approval for, damaging his reputation and sabotaging his campaign. Let’s hope the similarities don’t get that far, but this is seriously starting to scare me!

I will save further explanation of my views on The West Wing for another post. I’m just glad the fictional nuclear plant is in California - several thousand miles away.