Eli Attie

Eli Attie is a writer, producer, and former political operative. He served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, and then as Vice President Al Gore's chief White House and campaign speechwriter through Gore's concession of the 2000 presidential election, which Attie and Gore wrote together. Attie was a longtime writer on both the NBC-TV series The West Wing and the Fox-TV series House.

Attie grew up in New York City. His mother is artist Dotty Attie and his father was photographer David Attie. He is a graduate of Hunter College High School and Harvard College.

After working in the real White House, Attie became a writer on the NBC-TV series The West Wing for most of its run, and served as a producer and supervising producer in the show's later seasons. A number of that show's story lines came from Attie's own experiences in politics. In addition, according to David Remnick's biography of Barack Obama, "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama," and other news sources, Attie used then U.S. Senator Obama as a model for the character of Matt Santos, a presidential candidate played by actor Jimmy Smits in the final two seasons of The West Wing. Together with John Wells, Attie was nominated for Writers Guild and Humanitas awards for the episode "Election Day: Part 2," in which Santos wins the presidency.

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