West Wing parallels starting to get creepy

I commented back in December last year on the parallels between the real US presidential race and the fictional one played out in the last two seasons of The West Wing (needless to say, mine was not a unique insight). To add to the unerring prescience of the show, we now find that Barack Obama (aka Matthew Santos) has gone and selected Leo McGarry (aka Joe Biden) as his running mate. Or at least, so says Washington Note blogger Steve Benen:

Everyone remembers the seventh season of "The West Wing," right? A young, charismatic, relatively inexperienced member of Congress, who happens to be part of a minority group, endures through a lengthy and contentious Democratic primary season, and defies the odds against a better known and better tested party favorite to win the nomination. Waiting for him is an older Republican senator from out west, who's occasionally rankled various constituencies in his own party.

Ring a bell?

And what, pray tell, does the captivating Democratic candidate do when it comes time to pick a running mate? He chooses an older member of the party establishment, with a background in foreign policy, who helps bring heft to the ticket.

Benen asks, 'Am I the only one who thought of this?' But given Leo McGarry's fate at the end of The West Wing, surely the more important question is, has anybody told Joe Biden?