Soybean Field: Rural Doubt and a Missed Motorcade
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Cathy notices Toby's tension and Josh explains it's because Toby isn't allowed in the President's sightline during high blood pressure days.
Josh and Cathy discuss farming subsidies, with Cathy defending the need for them by highlighting the economic struggles of small farmers.
Toby bluntly states that Indiana will vote for Ritchie, revealing his cynical view of the campaign's efforts in rural areas.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Frustrated and defensive with weary moral urgency—she's tired of abstractions and insists on being seen and heard.
Cathy stands in the soybean rows, delivers a terse economic snapshot of her family's farm income, challenges the campaign to meet voters, then walks off in exasperation when confronted with abstract policy numbers.
- • Force campaign staff to meet actual local voters and hear their stories.
- • Expose the human consequences of abstract subsidy policy.
- • Protect and advocate for her family's economic survival.
- • Small farmers are overlooked by distant policymakers.
- • Numbers on paper don't capture lived hardship.
- • Direct contact with candidates can change outcomes.
Urgent and focused; underneath the pragmatism there is real worry about the campaign being compromised by a logistical lapse.
Donna moves between calm and urgency—she repeatedly urges the group to return to the campaign site, approaches the group to speed them along, and is the first to register the schedule risk before the motorcade drive-off.
- • Get Josh, Toby, and the team back to the stage before the President finishes.
- • Prevent the staff from being stranded and causing reputational damage.
- • Keep the campaign timing intact for subsequent events and the flight.
- • Campaign timing is fragile and must be enforced.
- • Being left behind has real operational and political costs.
- • Quick, decisive action can avert small disasters.
Irritated at the challenge to policy but anxious and protective about campaign timing and optics; his defensiveness masks concern for operational failure.
Josh toggles between defending the campaign's policy choices, trying to translate subsidy math into talking points, and managing logistics—ultimately noticing the motorcade's absence and reacting with consternation.
- • Defend the administration's record on farm payments and policy decisions.
- • Keep the team on schedule to reach the next stump and the plane.
- • Minimize political damage from a messy interaction.
- • Quantitative policy outcomes (e.g., $67 billion) should explain political choices.
- • Campaign logistics and schedule are paramount to maintaining momentum.
- • Compromise outcomes (Conference Committee) are inevitable and defensible.
Not present physically; operates as an organizing pressure, producing deference and time-sensitivity among staff.
The President is offstage but his presence structures behavior — Toby references his speaking status as a constraint, and the group's urgency is driven by his schedule.
- • Deliver the scheduled stump speech effectively.
- • Maintain campaign momentum and public optics.
- • Remain on schedule so national travel commitments are met.
- • Public appearances must be tightly managed.
- • Staff should function to support the speech and schedule.
- • Campaign discipline matters for governance credibility.
Not present; functions as an offstage electoral threat whose existence heightens staff anxiety about rural resonance.
Governor Ritchie is invoked as the opponent likely to win local support — his name functions as an electoral foil and shorthand for policies unpopular in this farming community.
- • (Implied) Capture rural votes by portraying Bartlet as out of touch.
- • Exploit perceived disconnects between Washington policy and small farms.
- • Rural voters respond to perceived alignment with local interests.
- • Messaging that frames elites as out of touch will gain traction.
Absent physically as a crowd, but present in tension — anxious and distrustful toward distant policymakers.
Rural Indiana voters are the implied audience of the exchange: Cathy's statements are proxy testimony for their hardship and likely voting behavior; they are the political object of debate.
- • Secure meaningful economic relief and recognition from policymakers.
- • Vote for candidates they perceive as responsive to local needs.
- • Washington policy often fails to help small farmers.
- • Direct engagement with candidates matters.
Resigned, weary, and slightly sarcastic — his cynicism hides a deeper anxiety about messaging and the President's performance context.
Toby stands apart as the terse, blunt interpreter — summarizing the Conference Committee's limits, voicing a bleak electoral prognosis (Indiana for Ritchie), and reacting to the President's presence as a complicating factor.
- • Articulate the communication reality: rural voters are slipping away.
- • Avoid sugarcoating the shortcomings of Washington policy.
- • Protect the President (by noting his own constraints and visibility).
- • Washington solutions often fail to map onto rural needs.
- • Messaging must reflect electoral realities, not wishful thinking.
- • Honesty about limitations is necessary even if politically uncomfortable.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Bartlet campaign plane is invoked as the looming logistical deadline that structures the aides' timeline: Josh repeatedly cites 'we get on the plane' to justify leaving, turning Cathy's plea into a choice against a fixed transport schedule.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Kentucky is invoked as a cautionary tale—named by Josh as a place where aides were left behind—serving to heighten anxiety about being stranded in rural territory.
Tennessee is similarly invoked as a joking yet menacing place where people 'were never heard from again,' amplifying the group's fear of isolation and the need to get moving.
The soybean field is the immediate physical and symbolic setting: it grounds Cathy's testimony, makes the policy abstract into visible rows of crop, and isolates the aides from their motorcade and campaign bubble.
Unionville is referenced as the next scheduled stump stop — a deadline that compresses choices and justifies the aides' insistence on leaving the field.
The campaign site/stage is the offscreen locus the group is trying to reach; it is the operational hub anchoring their urgency and the place the President occupies while speaking.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
Big Farm Corporations are evoked by Josh as the likely indirect beneficiaries of vague subsidy rules — their presence is an implicit antagonist that explains why policy compromise didn't fully help small farmers.
Bartlet for America is the operational organization whose schedule, motorcade, and optics drive the staff's behavior; the campaign's timetable forces choices that distance staff from grassroots encounters.
The Conference Committee is invoked by Toby as the institutional venue where attempts to raise payment limits for small farmers stalled — its procedural deadlock functions as the proximate policy explanation for Cathy's hardship.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Josh's explanation of Toby's tension being due to high blood pressure days is revisited when Donna warns them about the motorcade's departure."
"Josh's explanation of Toby's tension being due to high blood pressure days is revisited when Donna warns them about the motorcade's departure."
"Both beats explore the disconnection between the administration and rural America, first through farming subsidies and later in campaign strategy debates."
"Both beats explore the disconnection between the administration and rural America, first through farming subsidies and later in campaign strategy debates."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"CATHY: This is 200 acres of soy fields. It nets my family $30 an acre, which is $6000 a year."
"TOBY: Indiana's voting for Ritchie. If there was someone less competent than Ritchie on the ballot, that's who Indiana'd be voting for."
"JOSH: We paid farmers $67 billion over the last three years."