Madeline "Mandy" Hampton is a fictional character from the American serial drama The West Wing, portrayed by Moira Kelly. She was the White House media director during the first season of the show, and the former girlfriend of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, with whom she often clashed. A savvy political strategist and no-nonsense negotiator, the character is said to have been based on Mandy Grunwald, a real-life Democratic political consultant and media adviser who worked on the presidential campaigns for both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Moira Kelly said of her character, "She's a fighter in a difficult business and has a lot of strength." Although Kelly was a primary cast member during the first season, Mandy was featured less frequently as the season progressed; Aaron Sorkin said early on in Season 1 that he and Kelly had agreed that the character was not working out, and that she would have less of a focus because she would not be returning for Season 2. Storyline Mandy Hampton is a political consultant who left a high-paying and prestigious public relations firm to work for top politicians in the public sphere. Extremely ambitious, Mandy has a reputation as a savvy political strategist and no-nonsense negotiator. She has a bachelor's degree in art history, a master's degree in communications, and a Ph.D. in political science. Mandy starts out the show as an advisor to Democratic Senator Lloyd Russell, a political challenger to President Josiah Bartlet who opposes many of his policies. She was also dating the senator, which angered Deputy White House Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, who used to date her himself. In the second episode of Season 1, "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc", Mandy leaves the employ of the senator, and stops dating him, when he defies her wishes and tables a bill in committee for which she planned to fight vigorously. As a result, she is hired as a media consultant for Bartlet, much to Josh's chagrin. In her new capacity, she reports directly to him and to Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director. Before leaving Russell's employment, Mandy wrote a memo to him deeply critical of Bartlet's administration. This memo eventually becomes public, and an embarrassment for the Bartlet administration in the episode "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet", leading to her being cut out of the policy-making loop for a while until the President orders