John Hoynes

John Hoynes is a fictional character played by Tim Matheson on the American television series The West Wing. Hoynes is Vice President of the United States during the first four seasons of the show.

As a senator from Texas and the Democratic leader, John Hoynes was the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 1998 presidential election. After a primary battle, Hoynes lost the nomination to New Hampshire Governor Josiah Bartlet, with his campaign beginning to lose momentum when Josh Lyman, one of his most important strategists, defected to the Bartlet operation. Lyman had been growing increasingly frustrated at the Hoynes campaign's constantly avoiding taking positions on key issues like Social Security reform, and was impressed with Bartlet's rigorous honesty after being asked to see the then-Governor of New Hampshire by Leo McGarry. After winning the crucial Illinois primary and clinching the Democratic Nomination for President, Bartlet, acting on the advice of Leo McGarry, invited Hoynes to join the ticket as his running mate to balance the ticket (Bartlet was from New England, Hoynes from Texas, and Bartlet was liberal while Hoynes moderate.) Hoynes was also fifteen years younger than Bartlet. When Bartlet won the nomination he made an attempt to display his trust for Hoynes by revealing that he had multiple sclerosis. Hoynes did not give Bartlet an answer immediately, but eventually accepted the spot on the ticket. Bartlet counted on Hoynes to deliver the South, and although the Bartlet & Hoynes ticket carried both Florida and Georgia they lost Texas in the general election.

Hoynes had a rocky relationship with President Bartlet, mainly because of Hoynes' resentment over losing the nomination and his disapproval of Bartlet's failure to disclose his medical history during the primaries. In the first season, they quarreled in a cabinet meeting over Hoynes' opening statements to the cabinet when the President was running late. When the story was leaked to Danny Concannon, Bartlet assumed (erroneously) that Hoynes had leaked it. When Hoynes asked the president straight out about the source of his resentment, Bartlet explained his irritation with Hoynes' unwillingness to accept the offer of the office: "You shouldn't have made me beg, John. I was asking you to be Vice President." This was a reference to the notion that Bartlet could not or would not have won the election were Hoynes not on the ticket.

However, despite their constant disagreements, Bartlet and Hoynes often displayed respect for one another; the President was particularly impressed when the VP opposed an ethanol measure that the President and his staff finally admitted was a bad idea, and they ended up losing the vote on the matter to prevent Hoynes from having to cast a tie-breaking Senate vote in the measure's favor. In the second season it is believed that Hoynes thinks Bartlet might not run for re-election because of his MS. Hoynes then started making covert trips to the early primary state of New Hampshire, as he assumed he would get the nomination if Bartlet didn't run. These activities ended when Bartlet publicly revealed his plans at the end of the second and beginning of the third season. With much of his staff contemplating dropping Hoynes from the ticket during the 2002 campaign in favor of Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Bartlet insisted on keeping Hoynes, explaining his reasoning in a simple note that read "Because I could die."

Hoynes also had several run-ins with Leo McGarry (who at one point warned him that the VP was not the country's 2nd in command, Leo was, and that he'd find himself out of any job if he ever treated C.J. Cregg harshly again), though as with Bartlet, their mutual respect was clear. Both men were recovering alcoholics, and Hoynes invited McGarry to his secret AA meetings. Hoynes was seen to be quite saddened at Leo's funeral in the episode "Requiem".

In May 2003, it was discovered that Hoynes had leaked classified information to a Washington, D.C. socialite, Helen Baldwin, with whom he was having an extramarital affair, namely that he had seen evidence of life on Mars. Hoynes later confessed, "I like to show off." When President Bartlet asked Hoynes if he was in a position to deny the affair, Hoynes informed him that he was resigning the Vice Presidency. Bartlet and McGarry discouraged him from doing this, but Hoynes insisted, partly because he never really liked the vice presidency and partly to spare his family further pain. In the fifth season, it was discovered that Hoynes received a $5 million advance to write a tell-all book entitled Full Disclosure. Its aim was to repair his image so that he could successfully run for the presidency to succeed President Bartlet in the 2006 election. At Will Bailey's urging, the staff put together a very extensive list of all of Hoynes' screwups while he was VP, including an apparently disastrous foreign policy trip where he offended numerous Latin American leaders. He did an interview with Diane Mathers, with his wife by his side, as part of this effort. His candidacy was announced in the sixth season episode "A Change is Gonna Come." However, he was unable to get then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman to agree to run his campaign again.

In the primaries, Hoynes initially trailed in third place, with only single digit support, behind the frontrunners, Vice President Bob Russell and Governor Eric Baker of Pennsylvania. But after Baker's announcement that he would not run, Hoynes suddenly found himself in second place, with a small increase in support. Hoynes initially attempted to outflank Russell by convincing a Republican Senator to add an anti-gay marriage amendment to the federal budget, possibly forcing Russell to come out in favor of it and thus hurting him with Democrats in the primaries. When UK Prime Minister Graty began threatening to bomb Iranian nuclear sites after Iran shot down a British passenger jet, Hoynes was mentioned to have been in favor of tough action on Iran. When the Republican-controlled California legislature passed an anti-immigrant bill, designed to upset the Democratic primaries, Hoynes promised Governor Tillman that he would come out against it, although this turned out to be a maneuver to trick Russell into not campaigning there and to make third place rival, Matt Santos, seem too pro-immigrant if he came out against it. Josh Lyman, Santos' campaign manager, speculated that Hoynes would eventually overtake Russell in the primaries, due to Hoynes' experience and greater political skill. But Josh also believed that at that point, Santos would then have become a more appealing alternative to Hoynes for liberal Democratic activists, due to Hoynes' adulterous past and moderate stance.

Hoynes' campaign suffered a massive setback when a female Senate staffer alleged that Hoynes had made inappropriate advances towards her, once again bringing his adultery to light and putting Hoynes firmly in third place behind Russell and Santos. In the deadlocked Democratic National Convention, Hoynes had only 956 delegates to Russell's 1,677 and Santos' 1,599, leading many to say he had no chance at the nomination. Hoynes' campaign banked on the theory that after a few deadlocked ballots, party activists would flood to the more experienced, better known Hoynes in order to break the deadlock between Santos and Russell. Josh Lyman approached him with blunt talk – his hope of being President had died the day in 2003 that he resigned the VP's office and his record was too checkered for him to be nominated to a high Cabinet or diplomatic position – and made him an offer of being a "party elder" under a Matt Santos administration in return for Hoynes endorsing Santos and releasing his primary delegates, stating that he would be persona non grata under a Robert Russell presidency. Hoynes did not accept the offer immediately and lost his chance to make a decision when Governor Eric Baker entered the convention and announced his candidacy. By the time the second ballot was complete, Hoynes was left with only 102 primary delegates which further dwindled to 71 and 43 in the third and fourth ballots respectively. This ended his chances at the nomination, any deal he might have had with Josh, and his political career.