Elsewhere in the West Wing, Donna has just returned from her trip and tracks down Josh. It turns out that Amy managed to mobilize her folks in twenty-four hours, and telegrams have come pouring in, two-to-one against the welfare bill. ["People still send telegrams?" -- Wing Chun] Donna assures Josh that things will turn out okay, then splits off from him to talk to Sam. She passes along the chairman's message for Sam to "get up off the dirt." Sam insists that he is, in fact, off the dirt. Sam heads into his office, only to have Charlie join them as well, offering to pick up Sam's spirits with a magic trick. I so want to see Charlie do a magic trick. He doesn't do one, though. Dammit.

Toby heads into Sam's office to shoo off Charlie and Donna so that he can get some private time with Sam. Toby shuts the door and tells Sam a story about screwing up on his very first campaign. There were some questions lobbed at his candidate -- who was running for Bronx borough president -- about his tax returns. So they called a press conference. Toby didn't want the conference to run too long, so he turned off the air conditioning to keep people from getting too comfortable. Unfortunately, it backfired when the candidate fainted. Sam insists that he's fine. Toby says that's good, because this isn't the time for "the starters to be on the bench." Yes, yes, work that baseball metaphor in. Toby starts to leave, but stops to tell Sam that he read Jane and Muriel's pitch about the Everglades, and agrees with Sam that they should pass. Sam, though, has changed his mind, and says he was in the middle of writing up a memo about it. Toby worries that a tactical decision like this could make them look bad. Sam suggests that they need to get used to it. They need to present their case and make a stronger argument than Ritchie's side has done. If they do it right, it will force Ritchie into the position of having to defend special interests who also happen to be heavy polluters. That's not a bad plan on a national level, but I still disagree with Jane and Muriel that it will put Florida into play for the Democrats. Ritchie will no doubt spin it to Floridians as a threat to jobs, and in the South, in my experience, employment issues tend to trump environmental ones. Toby nods Sam's approval. As Sam heads off somewhere else, Toby asks him if he's still mad. Sam says that he is.