Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to get film star Martin Sheen to run for Senate against Republican Mike DeWine in 2005, according to an opinion piece in yesterday's Washington Post from Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., a former executive producer and writer of NBC's "The West Wing."

Sheen, a Dayton native who portrayed President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet on the show, refused to do it. Although he has been a longtime Democratic activist, Sheen told Reid: "I'm not a politician. I just play one on TV."

"Having been turned down by their dream candidate, the Democrats went on to win the Ohio Senate seat with the most conventional of competitors, a House member looking for a promotion," the piece continues. "But the search for the dream candidate never dies."