Freedonia (The West Wing)

Infobox Television episode
Title = Freedonia
Series = The West Wing


Caption =
Season = 6
Episode = 125
Airdate = February 162005
Production = 2T5015
Writer = Eli Attie
Director = Christopher Misiano
Guests = Mary-Louise Parker
Gary Cole
Tim Matheson
Evan Arnold
Karis Campbell
Episode list = List of "The West Wing" episodes
Season list = Infobox The West Wing season 6 episode list
Prev =
Next ="Freedonia" is episode 125 of "The West Wing".

Plot

It is five days before the New Hampshire primary, and Josh is desperately trying to find a "silver bullet" that will get his candidate into the local debate between front-runners Russell and Hoynes. Unfortunately both Hoynes and Russell plan to have a two man debate, as they are the two favorites. Santos and Josh embark on a plan to persuade them to open up the debate to all seven Democratic candidates, but only Russell is half way willing to listen.

Russell's aides have come up with an ad that is negative toward Hoynes, and Josh sends out men in chicken suits to confront Hoynes and Russell during their campaigns saying "why are you too chicken to engage in a debate?", a reference to a similar occurrence during the 1992 Presidential Campaign. Donna is caught on camera berating one of the giant chicken.

Then, Josh and Santos's disagreements over how to run the campaign come to a head when Santos hires Josh's ex-girlfriend Amy Gardner to help him prepare for the potential debate. Brilliant though she is, Josh finds out that the phrase the press are using for the candidates "The seven dwarves" was coined by Amy, and that she is giving the same advice to everyone in the running. Josh fires her immediately, again, against the wishes of Santos.

Finally, Santos is shown a video of Josh's negative ad that underlines the debate issue. He doesn't like it, and rushes over to the local channel and does a presentation live to air. With his simple appeal to be allowed to take part in the debate, the phones go wild, and Santos is suddenly on the map.

The episode ends with all seven democratic candidates about to take part in a televised debate, using Santos' rules.

"Freedonia" refers to a fictional country in the Marx Brothers film "Duck Soup".

External links

* [http://epguides.com/WestWing/ The West Wing Episode Guide]