wrath of his boss and jeopardising his promotion to partner. In the midst of this, Josh returns from a trip to New Hampshire during which he has seen Hoynes' dark-horse challenger, Jed Bartlet, speak to a small audience of voters. Josh has been sufficiently inspired to abandon Hoynes' campaign and go work for Bartlet, which in turn convinces Sam to do the same. Sam becomes part of the talented team of staffers who help Bartlet to a very unlikely victory in 1998. Personality Sam's tragically flawed romantic relationships are something of a theme of the series with Josh once describing Sam's love life as "a moveable feast". 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 high-priced call girl named Laurie, played by Lisa Edelstein (with whom he slept 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 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 28-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 has always believed was innocent, actually had been a spy. Another trademark of Sam is his ability as a speechwriter. He is an extremely talented