Dislikes

I think it made sense to have conflict with the VPs. The stories as to why worked, but more than that I think it was important to have there be a more internal conflict than straw man bad guys, which would end up being republicans. While there were some of those, they also showed reasonable republicans and without the internal conflicts it wouldn't have been as good a balance.

I think the thing to remember is that there were very legitimate reasons for the issues the President and staff had with both Vice Presidents. With Hoynes, it was actually clearly mentioned. He made the President beg to be his running mate. Also, I think Hoynes was much more of a politician than Bartlet. Not necessarily smarter or more capable, but he knew how to play the game much more. He was more like a real life politician as opposed to Bartlet's almost naive idealism. With Russell, he was not the President's choice. He was really Haffley's pick. The Republican leadership wanted a buffoon so the democrats would be scrambling for the next election. Bingo Bob certainly filled that role. Although, he ended up being a less engaging but equally as good at the game politician as Hoynes. I also think that had there been a more harmonious relationship between the President and Vice President, the show would have felt much less balanced. As it was, we had very liberal democrats and very conservative republicans. The show needed the centrists. The ones who won't be about the issues, but are about winning. There were some moderate republicans and democrats throughout the series, but they needed some genuine politicians to balance the idealism of both sides. Regardless of one's political affiliation, there were characters we could admire throughout. Hoynes and Russell were the antithesis of that.