We’ve been going a little overboard with the Obama coverage today, but this video from Slate V’s Torie Bosch is too good to resist. Bosch shows some striking similarities between Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the fictional campaign of Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) on The West Wing. Bosch isn’t the first to note the similarity; Politico’s Jamal Simmons wrote basically the same thing last week, but it’s a bit more compelling to see the clips of Obama and Santos side-by-side.

Turns out, not only were Obama’s advisers paying attention to The West Wing, they were helping to craft the plot. David Axelrod had even consulted with West Wing writer Eli Attie while working on Obama’s 2004 senate campaign, and Attie later admitted that Obama directly shaped the Santos character.

Santos is a young, inexperienced and attractive minority candidate who rises from congress to the presidency, but the similarities don’t end there; a hard-fought primary election against a more established candidate ultimately results in the dreaded — or desired, depending on who you ask — brokered convention. The only problem that I have with the Obama-Santos comparison is that Santos looked too much like The Rock for his candidacy to be believable.

The video is below.