Robert Ritchie
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Robert Ritchie is a fictional character played by James Brolin on the television serial drama The West Wing. The character is a former Governor of Florida and Republican nominee in the 2002 presidential election,
Ritchie was somewhat of a come-from-behind nominee in the 2002 election season, with most political analysts believing the Republicans would never nominate such a simple (intellectually) candidate to combat the self-named "Education President" Josiah Bartlet. Even when polls showed Ritchie pulling even with the then-frontrunner "Simon," (who is never seen or mentioned again) most of the senior White House staff didn't believe he could win. Only Bartlet and Toby Ziegler, as Bartlet put it, "know different."
Ritchie is assumed to be the official Republican nominee after the episode Hartsfield's Landing, which is the only episode showing any actual primary activity.
Ritchie's campaign staff shows their inexperience when Bartlet has an open-mike gaffe, saying on B roll after an interview that he thought Ritchie was a ".22 caliber mind in a .357 Magnum world" (in other words calling Ritchie stupid, a point Democrats had been careful to avoid thus far). Ritchie's staff repeatedly gave quotes to the press, trying to push the White House into officially commenting, failing miserably as every mention of the story merely fueled the public debate over whether Ritchie was smart enough to be President. Eventually the supposed "gaffe" was revealed to be an astute maneuver by Bartlet to spark a debate over Ritchie's intelligence while avoiding backlash by making the incident really seem like an accident, not a straight-on attack. By using a gun reference, typically a GOP topic, to call Ritchie stupid, Bartlet was able to encourage even Republicans ask whether Ritchie was suited for the job.
The Ritchie campaign retaliated with its own behind-the-scenes political maneuver. Republican campaign staffer Kevin Kahn sends Sam Seaborn a video anonymously which contained an attack ad with no source or sponsor against Bartlet. Sam decides to sit down with Kahn, against the express wishes of Josh Lyman, Toby Ziegler, and Bruno Gianelli, and during the meeting hands the video over to Kahn (trying to show Bartlet wasn't attacking Ritchie, but also saying the Bartlet campaign had an ad like it "in a drawer" if the Ritchie campaign struck first). Unfortunately, Kahn had played Sam the entire time, leaking the video to the press and telling them it was given to the Ritchie campaign by Sam. As such, the news reported on the story of the leaked video, the video got played constantly in primetime on news networks, and the Ritchie campaign remained clean as they had not actually done anything but mail a videotape (which was only privately proven).
Both maneuvers can be seen as rather ironic foreshadowing of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy over John Kerry's service record in the real-life 2004 presidential election. The SBVfT aired several ads, some of which even the newspeople themselves were saying were lies, and got them picked up by national media by the controversy they created. Just as the Ritchie campaign kept bringing up the President's remark, Kerry had focused so heavily on his own service record that he and his campaign continued trying to disprove the ads. Unfortunately, this merely sparked a reaction similar to the Ritchie camp's move, as every time the Kerry campaign mentioned the SBVfT, one of the Veteran's ads got free air time, and the Bush campaign took no hit as they were not directly connected to the Veterans.
The Ritchie campaign agreed to only two debates, while the Bartlett camp wanted five. A decision was handed down that there would be two debates using rules that did not allow for true debate. Bartlet wanted real discussion in the debate, so he traded down to a single debate in exchange for effective debate rules that allowed him to engage Ritchie. The single debate resulted in an overwhelming victory for the President. When Governor Ritchie criticised the federal government superseding the states, President Bartlet replied by saying Florida had taken billions of dollars in money from the federal government, and cheekily asking "Can we have it back, please?" The President's debating skills were so impressive that even Ritchie himself admitted defeat. In the post-debate handshake, Ritchie whispered "It's over," to Bartlet, who replied "You'll be back". There was an election episode (Election Night), showing the official results of the 2002 election, but the debate is where Bartlet is considered to have beaten Ritchie.
Despite Bartlet's "You'll be back" prediction, Ritchie was not among the names listed as the Republican candidates in the following election.
[edit] Trivia
- By coincidence or design, there is a real-life Rob Richie who runs the US-based Center for Voting and Democracy.
- Robert Ritchie is also the real name of rapcore musician Kid Rock.
