Cloakroom Count: One Vote Short
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Josh enters the Republican cloakroom for the first time, noting its similarity to the Democratic decor.
Josh and the staffer exchange historical anecdotes about the cloakroom, lightening the mood before the serious discussion begins.
Josh inquires about potential soft votes, specifically mentioning Nearing and Herman Morton, showing his strategic focus.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Righteously indignant shifting to urgent, combustible frustration—his public composure cracks into anger as political reality lands.
Josh barges into the Republican cloakroom, uses joking historical banter to create a conversational opening, directly asks about Nearing and Herman Morton, argues angrily when told of the poll, and storms out when told the bill is one vote down.
- • Identify and secure soft Republican votes for the foreign aid bill.
- • Prevent last-minute defections that would embarrass the President and derail the administration's agenda.
- • Legislative outcomes should be driven by policy merits rather than media-driven polls.
- • A single senator's late defection can be countered by personal pressure and urgency if he can reach them quickly.
Not applicable—mentioned as a rhetorical device to lighten the mood.
Benjamin Harrison is a historical name-drop in Josh's opening banter; he serves only as comedic shorthand to loosen the cloakroom atmosphere before the conversation turns serious.
- • Serve as cultural/historical color in conversation (narrative role).
- • Provide a bridge from banter to business for Josh's interrogation.
- • Historical anecdotes can humanize and disarm a tense political space (implied).
- • Cloakroom lore matters to insiders and can be invoked for levity.
Not present; emotionally invoked as vulnerable and politically exposed.
President Bartlet is invoked repeatedly as the political stake—the person whose image and electoral map are at risk; he is not present but his prospects drive Josh's urgency and Jane's defensive posture.
- • (Inferred) Maintain electoral gains and policy agenda.
- • (Inferred) Avoid public embarrassment and legislative defeat on foreign aid.
- • The President's popularity and electoral map are fragile and can be ruined by late legislative losses.
- • Campaign geography (Colorado) matters and must be defended strategically.
Not present; politically calculating by proxy—his stance is presented as negotiable only at high cost.
Herman Morton is invoked by Josh as a potential flip; he does not speak but functions as a named lever—Jane immediately rebuts that turning Morton would demand rewriting the education bill.
- • (Inferred) Preserve legislative leverage to extract concessions on education policy.
- • (Inferred) Use vote as bargaining chip rather than freely flip for foreign aid.
- • (Inferred) Votes can and should be traded for tangible policy outcomes.
- • (Inferred) Constituency and policy priorities justify demanding significant concessions.
Controlled and resolute; she is unsentimental about political cover and focused on practical consequences rather than moral arguments.
Jane answers Josh's probing calmly and pragmatically, delivers the news that her senator will vote no, cites the imminent Liberty Foundation poll as political cover, and refuses to be swayed by Josh's outrage.
- • Protect her senator's political position and provide a credible explanation for his vote.
- • Prevent being bullied by White House staff and maintain her office's strategic autonomy.
- • Polling and media perception legitimately shape how senators vote when their constituencies are hostile.
- • Public cover—like a poll—matters more to her boss than abstract policy arguments from the White House.
Mildly amused moving to pragmatic impatience—he treats Josh as a familiar irritation and then enforces Senate procedure.
The Senator's staffer trades banter with Josh to diffuse tension, answers direct questions about Nearing's soft vote chances, quotes the poll, and announces the quorum call with factual bluntness that snaps the room back to procedure.
- • Maintain cloakroom norms and deflect White House pressure.
- • Communicate the factual state of votes to shape expectations and preserve procedural order.
- • Cloakroom tradition and insider knowledge are weapons against outsider pressure.
- • Procedural markers (like a quorum call) must be observed and used to manage timing and leverage.
Not applicable—serves as rhetorical color to illustrate cloakroom history.
Nan Britton is referenced by the staffer as part of the cloakroom's tawdry history—an offhand anecdote that colors the room's lore and underscores institutional continuity.
- • Function as a cautionary/humorous historical example in conversation.
- • Provide rhetorical weight to the idea that the cloakroom holds secrets and precedents.
- • Past scandals and human stories are part of institutional memory.
- • Invoking scandal can normalize the cloakroom as a place where politics is gritty and personal.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Liberty Foundation poll is introduced as the decisive external artifact giving the senator political cover to defect; its numbers (68%/59%) are quoted verbatim and pivot the room from banter to crisis by legitimizing a no vote.
The quorum-call buzzer sounds mid-argument, serving as a hard procedural punctuation that ends banter and forces attention to the imminent vote count, increasing urgency and cutting off Josh's attempts to negotiate further.
The foreign aid bill is the central, though not physically present, object of contention; the conversation orbits its fate, with the poll and the senator's defection threatening its passage and the administration's agenda.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Burundi is invoked by Jane as the public-facing example fueling negative polling—used to make abstract foreign aid consequences concrete to voters and to explain why constituencies resent distant spending.
The Republican cloakroom is the enclosed, semi-private battleground where partisan staffers trade lore and negotiate votes; its intimacy allows candid admissions and the strategic deployment of polling as cover, and serves as the scene's crucible where hope turns to crisis.
Colorado functions as an offstage political map location invoked to explain why certain strategic moves (like presidential appearances) were necessary and why losing a vote there would be electorally costly.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The New York Times is invoked as the audience whose scrutiny matters; Jane argues the poll gives her senator cover with "New York Times people," suggesting that media validation will legitimize the vote in the court of national opinion.
The Liberty Foundation functions as the external instrument that produces and times poll data, providing senators with plausible cover to oppose foreign aid; its imminent poll release is the proximate cause of the senator's announced no vote.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Jane Cleery's revelation about the Liberty Foundation poll causing a senator to defect directly leads Josh to discuss the poll's damaging effects with Donna, setting the stage for the legislative crisis."
"Jane Cleery's revelation about the Liberty Foundation poll causing a senator to defect directly leads Josh to discuss the poll's damaging effects with Donna, setting the stage for the legislative crisis."
"Jane Cleery's revelation about the Liberty Foundation poll causing a senator to defect directly leads Josh to discuss the poll's damaging effects with Donna, setting the stage for the legislative crisis."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"JANE: "68% say we spend too much on foreign aid. 59% want foreign aid cut.""
"JOSH: "What the hell do I care? These people are responding to...""
"JANE: "You're one vote down on foreign aid.""