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July 11, 2005
Town adopts 'West Wing's' Sen. Vinick as a favorite son and stumps for his presidential campaign
By Norma Meyer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
SANTA PAULA – Politics are fruit-loopy in this small-town "Citrus Capital of the World."
Vinick boosters are as juiced up about the White House hopeful as the "Bobbing for Oranges" contest at the 38th Annual Citrus Festival next weekend. The Vinick-stumping City Council unanimously passed a motion directing the city manager to "take steps in support of his candidacy for President of the United States." The council also set up a campaign Web site for the moderate Republican (santapaulaforvinick.com), agreed to make a documentary about his roots and allocated $1,000 for Vinick T-shirts and political pins to be sold through fall.
Only Vinick isn't real. He's the fictional glad-hander played by Alan Alda on the Emmy-winning NBC drama "The West Wing."
"Absolutely, people think we're nutty," City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz chuckles.
The continuing tongue-in-cheek campaign for the fake wannabe prez launched Jan. 27, a day after "West Wing" fans Bobkiewicz and Santa Paula Mayor Mary Ann Krause watched the episode where Alda's Vinick announced his candidacy and said he was from a citrus-producing community in California.
Vinick was vague, but so what. Santa Paula, a 4.6-square mile agricultural hamlet in Ventura County, for decades has called itself "The Citrus Capital of the World."
Krause's home phone rang at 8:15 the morning after the episode aired. "It was the city manager and he said, 'Did you see what Vinick said?' I said, 'Do you mean about being from a citrus-growing area?' and he said, 'Yeah!' " the mayor exuberantly recalls.
The two hatched a plot: Vinick was to be a local yokel. Then they began a nearly six-month, so far futile barnstorm to get "The West Wing" to write Santa Paula into the script as Vinick's hometown. A Hollywood nod, city leaders figure, would draw tourists and bucks to their lemon-lush land.
Initially, Krause tried bribes. Along with letters, she sent crates of Santa Paula-picked oranges to Alda, "West Wing" executive producer John Wells and the show's writers. In Alda's package, she boldly threw in Santa Paula High School T-shirts, a sweat shirt and a baseball cap "for Senator Vinick to wear to show his allegiance to his hometown." (The city manager says Vinick could don his alma mater garb in scenes where he jogged or worked out.)
"Santa Paula is behind its favorite son 100 percent," Krause wrote.
After all, the straight-talking winsome Vinick could be the next TV leader of the free world. That's if he beats Texas congressman and liberal Hispanic Democrat Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) in a "West Wing" election showdown scheduled to air in late fall. The winner succeeds Democratic President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), whose two terms are up.
In reality, Santa Paula is largely Hispanic and Democratic and would likely vote for Santos. But this is pseudo-reality.
The only response to Krause came from "West Wing" writer Lauren Schmidt, who in an appreciative letter thanked the mayor for "the delicious Valencia oranges you sent to our offices!" Schmidt said writers were still developing Vinick's character and were "not ready to commit ourselves to all the intricate details of his past. However, we will definitely keep Santa Paula in mind if we ever take a journey back to Vinick's home for campaign events."
Encouraged, Bobkiewicz weekly began mailing Schmidt picture postcards of groves and historic buildings in Santa Paula, about 60 miles but a world away from "The West Wing" production offices in Burbank.
Then, he says, "We thought we'd kick it up a notch."
On April 25, Santa Paula police cordoned off streets for the official opening of the Senator Arnold Vinick Presidential Campaign Headquarters. By then, City Council members were tired of the "The West Wing" stall: They brashly passed a motion "to claim Senator Arnold Vinick as a resident of Santa Paula." The council also asked a cable company to produce a documentary, still in the planning, in which townsfolk shared their false memories of Vinick growing up.
John Philip Sousa music played, American flags waved in the breeze and red-white-and-blue balloons floated as some 50 residents turned out for the campaign kickoff outside the Southern Pacific railroad depot. Sitting in foldout chairs, rallying supporters hoisted homemade signs that read, "Santa Paula For Vinick" and "Santa Paula's Next President."
In a speech, Krause noted that another U.S. president, Benjamin Harrison, stopped at the same depot on the same day 114 years earlier. She pulled down a canvas cover to unveil the Vinick election headquarters sign.
The faux candidate was invited but didn't show.
You'd think the old Hawkeye Pierce would get a kick out of such shenanigans. Who knows? Alda, currently starring on Broadway in "Glengarry Glen Ross," did not respond to an e-mail forwarded by his agent seeking a comment for this story.
"Oy yoy yoy," an NBC spokesman blurted out when told about the Vinick campaign. Requests for comments from "West Wing" producer Wells and his production company also went unanswered. (Now on hiatus, "The West Wing" begins shooting later this month. Season 7 premieres in September).
The citrus (and avocado) hub isn't soured. City leaders are inviting Vinick, er Alda, to the Aug. 6 tri-tip/chicken barbecue dinner-dance celebrating Santa Paula Airport's 75th anniversary. The nominee also is welcome at the election night party, when Vinick backers watch the pivotal TV episode that could seal the California senator's political fate.
Vinick's campaign headquarters, in the depot that also houses the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce, will remain open daily for several more months through the election "unless 'The West Wing' decides Alan Alda is from Anaheim or someplace else," Bobkiewicz says. (Proceeds from the $20 T-shirts, $3 campaign buttons and $1 bumper stickers go into the city's Fourth of July fireworks fund for next year – so far the city is still recouping its $1,000 Vinick memorabilia investment.)
Sure, there are bigger civic concerns in this town of 29,000, like the battle over a proposed housing development in a canyon. But "with our budget problems and other issues we face, we thought this would be fun," Bobkiewicz says. Besides, the scene where Alda's Vinick announced his candidacy was shot outside the City Hall of neighboring Fillmore, a citrus-grove town rival, and that stuck in the mayor's craw.
Maybe it's the fragrant air out here . . .
"Fictional? What do you mean he's fictional?" local pharmacist Gary Metelak razzes, as he buys a Vinick button at campaign headquarters. "We're going to work for him!"
Don't underestimate Santa Paula's political juice. Last year, the mayor and Bobkiewicz were so irate that the Los Angeles Times dropped Santa Paula from its daily weather map they led a chanting crowd of picketers – some waving signs that declared "Let Santa Paula Shine!" – outside the paper's Ventura County office. The city was eventually reinstated to the Times map.
Now Santa Paula hopes the Emmy-winning former "M*A*S*H" star who aspires to the pretend presidency on a mock Oval Office set will put them on the map once again.
"Vinick wants to bring honesty back to government," the mayor says with that wry smile. "People like his message."
Posted by Jo at July 11, 2005 07:53 PM