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In this week's episode, we saw the President leave the White House in the middle of the night for a brief visit to Los Angeles, California. An early morning flight was necessary due to his full schedule in California: attendance at a debate on a flag burning amendment; lunch with his daughter; and an appearance at a political fund-raiser. (By the way, we saw the President fly to California on a 747, the airplane many people associate with Air Force One. In fact, Air Force One is actually the name for any aircraft -- large or small, blue or some other color, private or commercial -- on which the President is a passenger.) The show gave some sense of how much effort it takes to "move" the President and his senior staff, even for a routine trip.

Needless to say, the President does not travel lightly. A great deal of time and money go into every Presidential trip. Every moment of the President's time away from the White House is usually meticulously planned and rehearsed by the White House advance staff; together with the Secret Service and the military, they travel to the executive destination several weeks in advance of the President's arrival. Indeed, there is an entire White House office dedicated to advancing trips by the President, and staff members from other offices often will volunteer to assist in the effort (there are, of course, always plenty of volunteers when the President travels to exotic locations).

Everyone, it seems, has a job to do. The advance staff handles logistics, preparing the site of a Presidential visit both visually (for the TV cameras) and politically (determining who sits where or who gets a Presidential handshake). They walk through every sequence of the President's visit to make sure the schedule affords enough time for each activity, and to make sure that the President will not be exposed to any embarrassing situations. The Secret Service handles security, checking every attic, every closet, every crawl space of any building the President will enter. The President's hotel room is even decorated with objects which, if knocked over, would alert the Secret Service to a problem. The Secret Service also arranges the Presidential motorcades -- selecting vehicles to be in the motorcade, mapping the best routes to take to scheduled events, even identifying the fastest route to the nearest hospital. Many times, the Secret Service even sets up decoy motorcades with real cars to confuse any possible would-be assassins. The military handles the President's personal and administrative needs, from providing food to supplying weather updates in order to assist in planning what to wear. The military also organizes the lines of communications, from setting up secure telephone lines to filming the official video recording of the President's visit. This includes ensuring that the presidential seal is attached to any podium from which the President will speak.

The President's schedule for the 24-hour visit combined official business, family time, and political activity. Such a busy schedule would not be unusual; in fact, it is quite typical. The President's schedule while traveling is often busier than his schedule while in Washington. It also is not unusual for the President to mix official work (the flag burning debate) with political work (the fund-raiser) while on travel. This way, the taxpayers basically subsidize the cost of trips that include raising money for the President's political party. (The political party does contribute a certain percentage to the travel expenses for trips that include fundraising activities, but it always is a fraction of the actual costs.)

Amidst all this activity, the actions of Donna, secretary to Deputy Communications Director Josh Lyman, seemed unrealistic. She spent most of her time match-making and celebrity-hunting during the trip. Although secretaries travel with the President's senior staff, in most cases they are much too busy to have the time to gossip and to gape in the way that Donna did. More often, they are busy attending to administrative details, such as sending faxes to the White House, or ensuring that the President's speech cards are ready.

While the President was concerned with California, an interesting subplot developed at home involving the Vice President and a possible tie vote in the Senate. As you may recall from high school civics class, the Vice President is also President of the Senate, but only votes in the event of a tie. Usually, when a Vice President is required to break a tie vote, we expect the Vice President to vote in favor of the President's position on the issue. In this case, involving ethanol subsidies, the Vice President did not agree with the President, and planned to vote against the President to remain consistent with his own voting record as a former Senator. The story line highlighted the potential conflicts of interest inherent in the relationship between the President and the Vice President, particularly when the Vice President must choose between his loyalty to the President and his own political future. This friction was evident in the scene in which Leo, the President's Chief of Staff tries to convince the Vice President to support the President. When the Vice President bluntly tells Leo that he believes the President's staff dislikes both him and his staff, Leo does not disagree. Against the backdrop of Vice President Gore's loyalty to President Clinton -- which he sometimes regrets, and sometimes downplays -- we get a glimpse of what this relationship could have been like in a different administration.

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