Arnold Vinick

Arnold Vinick is a fictional character from the television series The West Wing played by Alan Alda. The role earned Alda a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006. Fictional biography Vinick is the senior Republican senator from California and a presidential nominee. He is a social moderate and fiscal conservative with a maverick streak and direct manner, whose policies are loosely based on those of real-life Arizona senators John McCain and Barry Goldwater. Vinick is (like Goldwater) moderately pro-choice in the sense that he is opposed to partial-birth abortion and in favor of parental consent laws. He is also in favor of immigration reform and is against gay marriage, but he is reluctant to use it as a campaign issue. Vinick (like Goldwater) opposes the Religious Right's influence in the Republican Party, and wants to return to more traditional, limited government conservatism. Vinick has also been described as a deficit hawk, supporting "two-for-one" tax and spending cuts, and he also favors free trade agreements, school vouchers, and tort reform, while opposing ethanol subsidies in the Midwest as corporate welfare. He is also conservative on law-and-order issues, such as gun rights, border security, and the death penalty. Vinick is mixed on foreign policy: he believes in a strong national defense and supports tough action against Iran, but was also described as an ally of Democratic President Josiah Bartlet on foreign policy issues and potentially an advocate of loosening the embargo on Cuba. It is stated that in his 2006 campaign, Vinick has strong support from corporate conservatives, neoconservatives, libertarians, Independents and "Bruno Gianelli" moderate Democrats, but that his support is weak among social and religious conservatives (7.06). In one episode, Vinick mentioned growing up in a "citrus-growing" community. In response to this, the town of Santa Paula, which is famous for citrus growing and is often referred to as the "Citrus Capital of the World," wrote to The West Wings production company, asking that Santa Paula be made Vinick's hometown. The production company promised to keep Santa Paula in mind for any campaign filming. In the meantime, the city council decided to organize a campaign for Vinick, including the opening of an Arnold Vinick presidential campaign headquarters. The town was eventually mentioned as Vinick's hometown in the episode "Two Weeks Out," broadcast on March 19, 2006.