Failing political drama tries to revive ratings by going live during sweeps month

No, I'm not talking about this:

Hoping to boost interest in a celebrated television series that has slipped in the ratings, NBC will air a rare live episode of "The West Wing" featuring a debate between the show's two nominees for president.

Former "NYPD Blue" star Jimmy Smits, who plays Democratic candidate Matt Santos, will square off against "M*A*S*H" veteran Alan Alda, the Republican contender Arnold Vinick, in the special "West Wing" telecast scheduled for November 6, NBC said on Thursday.

The episode will be produced live twice in the same night, once for the Eastern and Central time zones, and again for the Mountain and Pacific regions.

[ . . . ] At this point, it remains to be seen how far into the current season the climactic fictional election will take place and whether the series will even return next fall.

The latter question hinges in large part on whether "West Wing" can overcome its current slump in the Nielsen ratings.

I'm afraid I'm talking about this:

With only days before Tuesday's special election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to jolt the campaign by taking unscripted questions from voters on live television appears to be stumbling, with little sign that he is persuading the electorate that his agenda needs to pass, Republican and Democratic analysts said Friday.

Schwarzenegger had avoided such direct dialogue with voters until two weeks ago, in favor of controlled rallies packed with supporters. But even he had criticized such events as "mechanical" and hoped to get voters to take a fresh look at his four ballot measures through a more spontaneous forum in which his celebrity would give him a natural advantage.

Yet middle-class Californians of both parties have been confronting the governor directly in these events, indicating they have not been persuaded either by his celebrity or his argument that the initiatives he has endorsed must pass.

Truer words than Kevin Drum's have never been spoken:

It's pretty depressing that this is a perfectly sensible lead paragraph for a political story. We've gotten to the point in the United States where answering unscripted questions on live TV is so unusual that it really is pretty jolting.

"Mechanical," indeed. Does Schwarzenneger still not understand that his governorship--beginning with the night he declared his candidacy on Leno's show--is a made-for-TV gimmick?

The thing that's always worried me most about Der Ah-Nolt in the governor's office is that it seems like every time California gets a dumb idea, about ten years later Oregon decides to try it. Think about that one for a moment.