Sam Seaborn - Character Biography

Character Biography

Sam grew up in Laguna Beach, California. He made a reference to going to Dungeons and Dragons camp when he was younger in the episode The Two Bartlets. Sam graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and Duke University School of Law. He makes repeated references to his alma mater, especially in the earlier seasons, indicating a certain pride in his attendance there. "Princeton" is his Secret Service code name, and he mentions being the recording secretary of the Princeton Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

Sam attended Duke Law School and was the editor of the Duke Law Review (which, in reality, is known as the Duke Law Journal). He was a staffer for several congressmen and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He was also a practicing lawyer, working at the law firm of Dewey Ballantine in New York City before joining the fictional Gage Whitney Pace, reputedly the second biggest law firm in New York City. Sam worked there for seven years and was concentrating on helping an oil company with a deal that would protect them from litigation in the event of an oil spill when old friend Josh Lyman came to visit him. Josh was running John Hoynes's presidential campaign and had come to try to recruit Sam as a speechwriter. Sam declined, explaining that he was about to be made partner and was getting married soon (the engagement later fell through). Sam returned to work but, feeling guilty about the deal he was making, began trying to convince the oil company to buy newer, better tankers than the ones they wanted, unleashing the wrath of his boss and jeopardizing his promotion to partner. In the midst of this, Josh returned from a trip to New Hampshire during which he had seen Hoynes's dark-horse challenger, Jed Bartlet, speak to a small audience of voters. Josh had been sufficiently inspired to abandon Hoynes's campaign and go work for Bartlet, which in turn convinced Sam to do the same. Sam became part of the incredibly talented team of staffers who helped Bartlet to a very unlikely victory in 1998. After the election, Sam attained the position of Deputy White House Communications Director in the Bartlet Administration, often collaborating with White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler to write the President's most important public addresses, most notably States of the Union and his first inaugural.

Sam's tragically flawed romantic relationships are something of a theme of the series. After joining the campaign, Sam broke up with his fiancée, Lisa Sherborne, whom he was planning to marry in September of that year (the joke was that they broke up so that her name wouldn't become Lisa Sherborne Seaborn). Sam's other romantic relationships include a "highly priced call girl" named Laurie, played by Lisa Edelstein (whom he slept with without knowledge of her profession), and Leo McGarry's daughter, Mallory O'Brien, a fourth-grade teacher—a relationship Leo jokingly tries to sabotage, telling Sam, "I don't mind you dating my ONLY daughter, but you can't expect me not to have some fun along the way."

Sam's trademark—both his greatest strength and greatest flaw—is his unflinching idealism. His unwavering faith in and love for the American political process and the positive impact that government can have in its citizens' lives define his character. Sam believes in doing the right thing simply because it is right, even when the consequences might be politically disastrous. This often causes him to clash with the other members of the senior staff, who also have their ideals but tend to be more practical when approaching political problems. Occasionally Sam's idealism and faith in people are disappointed, to which he reacts very strongly. In the second-season episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Sam finds out that his father has been having a twenty-eight-year affair while married to his mother, a revelation that deeply shakes his sense of what he can and cannot count on. This feeling is reinforced by his discovery that a White House staffer convicted of treason during the Cold War, who Sam had always believed was innocent, actually had been a spy.

Another trademark of Sam is his ability as a speechwriter. He is an extremely talented writer, one of the very few people Toby recognizes as an equal in his field. Sam is seen in many episodes to rewrite speeches over and over again, unwilling to put words in the president's mouth that he isn't completely satisfied with. After a pipe bomb explodes at a university in "20 Hours in America, Part II," killing forty-four people including three swimmers, Bartlet gives a speech, written by Sam, that includes the following:

"...More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedoms and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. Forty-four people were killed a couple hours ago at Kennison State University; three swimmers from the men's team were killed and two others are in critical condition; when after having heard the explosion from their practice facility they ran into the fire to help get people out... ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars. God bless their memory, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America."

Bartlet campaign advisor Bruno Gianelli asks Sam when he wrote the last part. He replies, "In the car," which prompts the response, "Freak."

In a third season episode, Sam is awed by President Bartlet's foresight and wisdom when resolving an apparent impasse between the Chinese, the Taiwanese, and the Americans. President Bartlet predicts that Sam will run for President someday and should not be scared; Bartlet believes that he can do it.

During the fourth season, Sam decides to run for Congress in his home district—the California 47th in Orange County, California — in a special election held after deceased Democratic candidate Horton Wilde posthumously makes history by defeating arch-conservative Republican incumbent Chuck Webb. Sam first became familiar with the congressional race when he was sent to talk to Wilde's campaign manager, Will Bailey, on behalf of the Democratic Party to convince him to drop the campaign. Will had continued running the campaign with earnestness and energy after Wilde died, an act that was seen as bizarre and pointless—or, as Sam put it to him, "a national joke." After seeing firsthand how dedicated Will was, and realizing that he was a public servant in the mold of Bartlet's own senior staff, Sam became impressed with how he ran Wilde's campaign and offered his own name as a replacement candidate for election night in case Wilde won, not thinking he would ever have to honor the promise. When Wilde did win, Sam decided not to back out and to use this opportunity to promote a truly liberal agenda in the traditionally conservative district. He went to California with the blessing of Bartlet and his fellow White House staffers. Once he learned that Will Bailey was not going to stay on to manage his campaign, he recommended him as a temporary replacement for himself, to help Toby write Bartlet's second inaugural address.

It was never explicitly revealed whether Sam won or lost the election, but he was expected to lose in a landslide. President Bartlet came out to California to lend his support, bringing with him Sam's friends on the senior staff, who believed campaign manager Scott Holcomb was wasting Sam's time by having him run a safe, timid campaign. In the midst of the visit, Sam learned that Bartlet was putting off announcing the Democratic budget plan Sam himself had helped design, so that Sam wouldn't feel pressured to support it and further stigmatize himself during the election. Sam was appalled and decided to put things right. While introducing the president at a campaign event, he added that the audience shouldn't "let him off this stage" until he had announced the budget plan. Backstage, Bartlet watched Scott Holcomb react with distress and asked why he was running Sam's campaign the way he was. Holcomb admitted that he was anticipating Sam's loss and trying to smooth the way for a less divisive candidate the next time around, prompting Bartlet to (unofficially) fire him and get Toby to take over the campaign for the final weeks. Toby runs a thoroughly honest and liberal campaign, not until the very end of which does Sam realize, "I'm going to lose." Toby confirms it, explaining, "They're going to throw rocks at you next week, and I wanted to be standing next to you when they did." They hug, and this is the last scene in which Sam appears until the end of the final season.