Bartlet4America.org - Donnatella Moss

Personal Background

Donna was born in Warroad, Minnesota. Some time after the Moss family moved to Wisconsin, the U.S.-Canadian border was redefined, and Warroad became part of Manitoba. This temporarily complicated the issue of Donna's citizenship [3.15].
Donna grew up in a condo [3.3], and her parents still own a home in Madison, Wisconsin [2.19].
Her family is Protestant [1.10]; her mother is Italian, and her father is Irish [4.10].
Donna attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, she dropped out approximately two years before graduating in order to put her boyfriend through medical school. She majored in political science, government, sociology, psychology and biology with minors in French and drama [2.2].
After her boyfriend dumped her, Donna drove from Madison to New Hampshire in order to join the Bartlet campaign [2.2]. She briefly returned to Wisconsin in order to reconcile with her boyfriend. During this time, she was in a car accident. Instead of rushing to her side, Donna's boyfriend stopped off at a bar on his way to the hospital and had drinks with some friends. Donna ended the relationship and returned to the campaign. Josh took her back, saying, "Thank God. There's a pile of stuff on the desk" [2.18].
She saves letters from her father [3.5].
Donna's friends include:

Sam Seaborn, who includes Donna as one of his best friends [4.16].
Her roommate, who has cats [1.9].
Curtis, who fixed the wobbly wheel on Josh's chair [1.22].
Stephanie Gault, who Donna met at the University of Wisconsin. (They bonded as a result of their mutual loathing for the same ex-boyfriend.) [2.16].
Casey Reed, who she went to college with and who offered her a job with CapitolScoop.com [3.13].

She dropped out of college to put her boyfriend through medical school [2.2]. Dr. Free Ride, like Cliff and Jack Reese, was Republican, a trend Josh finds disturbing [4.19].
She was interested in someone named Donald, but he didn't call her [1.5].
She had a date with an obnoxious insurance lobbyist named Todd [2.7].
Ainsley Hayes set Donna up on a blind date with Cliff Calley, a Republican lawyer who worked first for the House Oversight Committee and then on Ways and Means. She saw Cliff twice: The first time they met for drinks, and Cliff left her standing in the middle of the street when he realized that dating her was a conflict of interest [3.3]. She saw him again the following night, however [3.4]. They slept together, which was when Cliff saw her diary [3.5].
If Mike Casper -- Josh's friend at the FBI -- wasn't tied up with burning churches, he'd be hitting on Donna [3.9].
She tells Josh that she's "kind of seeing" a lawyer [3.12].
After sending Josh to find out if Jack Reese liked her, Donna started dating him around Thanksgiving of 2002. By the night before the night before Christmas Eve, they were going away together [4.11]. Josh called him "Commander Wonderful" [4.19].

When Josh leaves the building, she looks out his office window so she'll see him when he comes back [1.19]. Josh finds it adorable that Donna seeks to control him [1.5]. It's unclear how he feels about it when she mocks his questionable legal abilities [4.21].
When Josh gets drunk, he ends up at her apartment and yells at her roommate's cats [1.9].
For Christmas, Josh bought her an antique book (Heimlich Beckengruber's The Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiing) and wrote a note in the book which moved her to tears [1.10].
When they travel, she carries his luggage [1.16; 3.1]. Of course, she also eats his food [2.5, 3.1].
She was the one who told Josh that his father had died [2.2].
She imposed rules about who could visit Josh when he was recovering after the shooting [2.3].
Josh calls her Gracie, Ethel Mertz, and Lulu from To Sir, with Love [4.9].

She was the first person to realize that Josh was having psychological problems after the shooting [2.10]. Her insight into Josh includes telling Amy, his ex-girlfriend, that she needed to "get" Josh, who goes through every day worrying someone he likes is going to get hurt and it's going to be his fault [4.22].
According to Donna, Josh randomly tumbles into women sideways and hopes they'll break up with him soon [1.13]. According to Josh, Donna's need to be coupled effects her sense of self-worth [2.7].
Josh admits that he doesn't like it when Donna dates and that he does "everything within [his] considerable capabilities to sabotage it" [2.14]. Interestingly, Amy Gardner heard that Josh "might be" dating Donna [3.8]. Amy later asked Donna whether she was in love with Josh [4.22].
According to Donna, Josh "likes to explain things, and, well, I let him" [2.17]. For her part, Donna practices so that when Josh asks the question, she can rattle off the requested information [4.3].
Donna is the girl Josh made fun of in elementary school [3.7].
Josh once gave Donna moose meat from Helsinki. She regifted it to an intern, who sold it on ebay, and Donna saved his job by buying back the meat she didn't want in the first place [3.20].
Donna mocks Josh about his groupies and calls them "bus station skanks" [4.23].