Debate Camp (The West Wing)

Debate Camp (The West Wing)
"Debate Camp"
The West Wing episode
Episode no. Season 4
Episode 70
Directed by Paris Barclay
Written by Aaron Sorkin (teleplay)
William Sind & Michael Oates Palmer (story)
Production code 175305
Original air date October 16, 2002
Guest stars
Season 4 episodes
List of The West Wing episodes

"Debate Camp" is episode 70 of The West Wing.

Plot

As the West Wingers prep for the presidential debates at a North Carolina conference center, with staffers asking questions and Sam playing the role of Governor Ritchie, a vexing question about a failed nomination from very early in the Bartlet Administration leads to flashbacks of the administration's first weeks in office. Among other events around that time:

  • Toby's marriage to Rep. Andrea Wyatt was about to end, as she was eager to begin trying to start a family but Toby was not comfortable with the idea and kept avoiding discussions and doctors' appointments with the reason/excuse being the ground-running start of the new Administration. In the present, Toby is seeking a reconciliation with his ex-wife, and Sam and Charlie are helping him in the effort to win her back.
  • C.J. is approached by a journalist who has suggestions for policy that she politely declines, and the journalist then says he will pray for her. C.J. is aghast to find out he represents the Christian Coalition and he's going to pray for her because he thinks she's going to Hell.
  • Sam is the only senior staffer opposed to the planned nomination of an African-American leader from Florida as the Attorney General, after CJ finds out that the nominee supports racial profiling. Sam cites the candidate saying that he wasn't scared of whites when he heard their footsteps behind him but was scared of African-Americans in the same situation. Sam was overruled and the nomination became a fiasco that lingered after the leader was removed from consideration for the AG job.
  • President Bartlet is surprised to learn he can have anything he wants loaned to him from the Smithsonian for the White House, and says he wants Apollo 11. Mrs. Landingham tells him he can't have it.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force weighs in on the Qumari matter by striking two terrorist camps in-country via F-15s. The terrorists later begin moving a ship full of missile parts towards Qumar, and the President decides to have the Navy intercede and seize the vessel. Joey Lucas reports that the president is likely to lose his home state of New Hampshire. This episode also informs that Toby and Congresswoman Wyatt have been trying to have children for at least 4 years, the length of the first term in office.

Trivia

  • This is the last episode in which Kathryn Joosten appears in the series as the character Dolores Landingham, the executive secretary to the President who was killed in a car crash at the end of season 2.

External links