\"At certain times over the past two years, it really did feel like a miniseries.\" The Jimmy Smits interview

It’s an urban legend that actor Blair Underwood based his “L.A. Law” role of a hotshot black attorney on Barack Obama during the late 1980s. Underwood had been playing the part for years before he even met Obama, who was president of the Harvard Law Review at the time. But it is true that Jimmy Smits’ charismatic candidate character Matt Santos on “The West Wing” was inspired directly by the politician. Indeed, writer-producer Eli Attie even spoke to Obama adviser David Axelrod to pick up back story and other details for use in his scripts.

The many parallels between “The West Wing’s” final season and the current presidential race have been widely noted. Like Obama, Santos is a former community organizer with a wife and two kids who enjoys grass-roots support, excels in soaring rhetoric about “hope,” yet lacks real congressional experience. His far older Republican rival, Arnie Vinick (Alan Alda), had a chilly relationship with conservatives in his own party and often engaged the press with “straight talk.” Indeed, “The West Wing” also predicted an October surprise of sorts, only it was a nuclear reactor meltdown instead of one on Wall Street that altered the race.


Though the “West Wing” finale was more than two years ago and Smits moved on to a role as an assistant D.A. on the quirky cable drama “Dexter,” thoughts of Santos and his eerily prescient presidential quest still weigh on his mind. Less than a hundred hours before the election, Politico spoke with the actor, who had just returned from introducing Obama at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., rally that capped off the candidate’s groundbreaking half-hour infomercial.

Politico: What went on behind the scenes in Fort Lauderdale?

Smits: It was an important night for them. Shock and awe in a way. They had the half-hour thing and the live show and earlier a get-out-the-vote rally. The senator was in conversation with President Clinton in the staging area, and I was just impressed with how ... calm everything was. That’s always my big perception about him — the steadiness there. Sure, there’s the magic of luck and the timing of things, but it’s how he keeps his head above the fray that makes me feel he can really be a transformative figure.

Politico: When was the first time you met the senator?

Smits: It was in 2004, just after the Democratic convention, at an [American Society of Mechanical Engineers] convention of federal employees in Chicago. I was backstage in this holding area tent and he walked in with no handlers — it was just me and him, the cheese and crackers and the Diet Cokes. We talked a bit about "The West Wing" and how I felt he really kicked it at the convention. And I said, “So, what’s the next step, man?” He looked at me and said, again, very calmly, “I don’t know if I want to put my family through this, but I really think that I have something to offer.” It was just two guys sitting around talking, but I got a little chill there. Going back to "The West Wing" again, it was like when Josh Lyman (the character played by Bradley Whitford), who ran the Santos campaign, gets this epiphany that "This is The Guy." I even remember asking myself, “Could this be The Guy?” And look at what unfolded. At certain times over the past two years, it really did feel like a miniseries.

Politico: We know “The West Wing” writer-producers spoke to Obama adviser David Axelrod. But did you pick up anything from Obama himself that you used as an actor?

Smits: That was happening in the writer’s room. Conceptually, when [executive producer] John Wells started discussing the show’s arc, he said we’d take our audience through the entire campaign process, and there’d be two candidates unlike any that had been seen before. Again, I had just seen this young senator from Illinois rock the house with his speech at the Democratic convention. But other politicians — Bill Richardson, the Clintons (especially Hillary), Xavier Becerra, [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa — were seminal in what I was doing character-wise. Meanwhile, the guys in the writing room were talking to Axelrod to get moves for the scripts.

Politico: When Obama’s campaign started, what was the first “whoa!” moment, when déjà vu started setting in?

Smits: It was right after Iowa. Santos has this scene with Brad’s character where he says, “I don’t want to just be the brown candidate; I want to be the American candidate.” Iowa was the validation that the heartland of America was ready for a change, and I know that word has been used a lot. But that’s when I got goose bumps and felt this could really happen. At other times, it was like watching a miniseries unfold. I kept asking, “Are you going to really do this? Do you really have your ‘A’ game?” I guess it all is kind of funny. And it is a little eerie. I think the bottom line is that the country had been vibing for some kind of change.

Politico: When did all the media comparisons start?

Smits: It actually began in England during the primaries, because they were a few years behind in getting "The West Wing." The BBC even put out a special called “President Hollywood” that went through the whole campaign process and discussed how Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of an African-American president in “Deep Impact,” Geena Davis’ female president in the TV series “Commander in Chief” and Harrison Ford’s feisty older president, reminiscent of McCain, in “Air Force One” in some subliminal way paved the groundwork for things to happen the way they did.

Politico: So how will the end of the 2008 campaign and “The West Wing” finally dovetail?

Smits: If you remember, Santos had to go to Vinick and ask him to be part of his team. Wouldn’t that be interesting if president-elect Obama had to go to the senator from Arizona? Seriously, though, if by this time next week Obama is our president-elect, I think what’s going to happen is that the senator from Arizona is going to have to take a look in the mirror and say to himself, “I lost my voice.”

Politico: What do you personally make of the comparisons between the show and the campaign?

Smits: I don’t mind talking about it, but after all is said and done, it was just a TV show. The election itself is of major, major importance. I was standing on the side during the Fort Lauderdale rally when [Hillary Rodham] Clinton and Obama were up there, and a big Latino and African-American contingent was there. There was an African-American guy there with his family and they were all huddled in the cold. His mouth was open and he was holding his family tight. I asked him, "Did you ever think you’d ever see something like this?" And he turned to me, his eyes glistening, and said, "I never thought I’d see this happen. I told my family ‘We have to come — I want you to see history.’"

Politico: How about your political future? Any plans for Jimmy Smits to start making like Matt Santos and run for office?

Smits: Nooooo. It doesn’t flow like that for me. I save the rage for the stage.