I’ve mentioned that I’m less than blown away by the cult that is Obama. In the six months or so that I’ve been aware of his existence, I’ve seen precious little to impress outside a gift for public speaking. No stellar voting record, no policies that make me think “Oh, that’d be great”. In fact, very little in the way of policy full stop.

And then the Guardian (of all places) goes and puts another big no-no by his name: apparently, Matt Santos is Barack Obama.

For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.

“I drew inspiration from him in drawing this character,” West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie told the Guardian. “When I had to write, Obama was just appearing on the national scene. He had done a great speech at the convention [which nominated John Kerry] and people were beginning to talk about him.”

Ah, Matt Santos. That quite decent presidential candidate who would have been a worthy loser to a much better prospect, had the writers not bent the rules to allow the obvious weaker candidate to win. In a set up that still annoys me, many months later.

Did that then influence my taking of a dislike to Mr Obama? Or am I just allergic to windbags, and he’s just catching some of my general dislike of politicians?

Answers on a postcard, as per usual…