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 favors free trade agreements, school vouchers, and tort reform while opposing ethanol subsidies in the Midwest as corporate welfare.

Four years later, his younger brother was born, and the family relocated to the southern California town of Santa Paula to farm orange groves.

However, when he is first introduced, it is also mentioned that as a freshman senator, he sat on the Judiciary Committee and befriended then-committee staffer Eric Baker, who would later become the Governor of Pennsylvania and a Democratic presidential/vice presidential contender.

In the primaries, Vinick defeated the Reverend Don Butler and former Speaker of the House and Acting President Glen Allen Walken for the Republican nomination in the 2006 presidential election.

Shortly after winning the nomination, Vinick met with Bartlet, with whom he shares a mutual respect, to discuss a deal to raise both the federal debt ceiling and the national minimum wage.

Her death and the harsh requirements of Old Testament Judaic law, which he discovered when he read the Bible in depth, made him question his own religious beliefs.

During the debate, Vinick tries to paint Santos as a typical liberal Democrat who would raise taxes to pay for intrusive big government programs while still leaving the federal budget unbalanced.

The Senator laid out a moderate agenda and reiterated his support for tax cuts, proposed tax-deductibility for health insurance costs, explained why he had voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, opposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty, promised to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, and declared his strong support for nuclear power.

In the middle of the campaign, as Vinick enjoys a massive lead over Santos, a nuclear reactor in Southern California comes close to meltdown, creating a panic for millions living in the vicinity.

After a staff shakeup prompted by the Republican National Committee, Vinick decides to go to California on the heels of the Santos campaign, and hold a press conference outside of the San Andreo plant in order to defuse the political fallout from the incident.

His strategy seems to work, as he returns to his straight-talking style, exhausting reporters of their questions and commandeering live news coverage of his opponent's campaign.

Vinick initially turns him down, but his top aides persuade him that another run at the presidency would be futile and tell him he could go down in history as "the last honorable Senator and a great Secretary of State."

[1] However, West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie insists that the character is not based on any real-life politician, but was simply a function of the casting of Alan Alda.