Arnold Vinick

Arnold (Arnie) Vinick
Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick
First appearance	"In the Room"
Last appearance	"Tomorrow"
Portrayed by	Alan Alda
Information
Nickname(s)	Arnie, "Big Sur" (Secret Service code name, S7E3)
Occupation	Four-term U.S. Senator (R-CA) (Seasons 6-7), Presidential Candidate(Seasons 6-7), incoming Secretary of State (Season 7)
Family	Richard Vinick (father), Patricia Vinick (mother)
Spouse(s)	Catherine Vinick (deceased)
Relatives	four children, nine grandchildren, one brother

Arnold Vinick is a fictional character on the television series The West Wing played by Alan Alda. The role earned Alda the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006.

Vinick is a Republican senator from California and presidential nominee.

He is a social moderate and fiscal conservative with a maverick streak and a direct manner whose politics are loosely based on those of Arizona senators John McCain and Barry Goldwater. Vinick is (like Goldwater) moderately pro-choice in the sense that he is opposed to partial-birth abortion and in favor of parental consent laws. He is also in favor of immigration reform and is reluctant to use gay marriage as a campaign issue. Vinick (like Goldwater) opposes the Religious Right's influence in the Republican Party, and wants to return to more traditional, limited government conservatism. Vinick has also been described as a deficit hawk, supporting "two-for-one" tax and spending cuts, and he also favors free trade agreements, school vouchers, and tort reform, while opposing ethanol subsidies in the Midwest as corporate welfare. He is also conservative on law-and-order issues, such as gun rights, border security, and the death penalty. Vinick is mixed on foreign policy, as he believes in a strong national defense and supports tough action against Iran, but was also described as an ally of Democratic President Josiah Bartlet on foreign policy issues and potentially an advocate of loosening the embargo on Cuba. It is stated that in his 2006 campaign, Vinick has strong support from corporate conservatives, neoconservatives, libertarians, Independents and "Bruno Gianelli" moderate Democrats, but that his support is weak among social and religious conservatives (7.06).