Al Kiefer (administrative coordinator — off-screen)

Lunch with Zoey — Bartlet Draws a Line

Not present; implied to be expecting access and now deferred — likely patient or professionally flexible.

Is referenced as the consultant whose meeting is being reassigned — an off-screen administrative presence whose agenda is deferred by the President's prioritization of family time.

Guacamole, Guard Detail and a Flag Joke

Confident, impatient and hungry — convinced he has a straightforward path to shore up votes and anxious to push the President into action.

Listens to Bartlet's joke, immediately reframes the throwaway line into a strategic electoral argument, presents polling and demographics, and aggressively pitches the President to lead for votes.

Kiefer's Numbers-Driven Sell: Burn the Flag, Save the White House

Confident, impatient, and quietly triumphant—he projects certainty and contempt for the room's moral qualms.

Al Kiefer sits with the senior staff and delivers a blunt, numbers‑first argument: he frames the flag‑burning amendment as an electoral inevitability and a vehicle to cement Bartlet's re‑election, repeatedly …

Wrong Door, Quiet Humiliation

Mildly amused and in control; his demeanor is composed, with a knowing coolness that deflates Josh without obvious malice.

Al opens the door in a white robe, greets Josh with cool composure, confirms Joey is inside, relays Joey's signed goodbye with dry amusement, and deliberately closes the door, containing …

Kiefer's Midterm Reckoning

Urgent and stern — matter‑of‑fact delivery that masks an anxious investment in preserving political viability.

Al Kiefer speaks plainly and insistently, delivering a stark political prognosis to the President and staff; he cites poll numbers and frames the policy choice as electorally fatal.

Mandy Confronted and Excluded from the Oval

Urgent and clinical — matter-of-fact delivery masking an urgent desire to avert political damage.

Al Kiefer speaks bluntly and unadorned, delivering hard polling figures and a dire prognosis that punctures optimism and forces the room to confront electoral reality.

Deflating the 'Soft on Crime' Attack — Data Steadies the Room

Combative confidence: intentionally provocative and rhetorically aggressive, trying to unnerve the room and force a defensive response.

Al Kiefer delivers a blunt, politically loaded character attack—reducing the administration's budget shift to a 'soft on crime' smear and invoking violent playground imagery to provoke moral panic.

When Sellability Trumps Science — Josh’s Exit and the Charged Look

Curt and impatient on the surface; morally unpersuaded by abstract arguments and focused on voter reaction and messaging consequences.

Pushes back bluntly against the scientific framing, repeating that the idea 'won't sell' and forcing the conversation into electoral practicality; acts as a political realist exercising salesmanship judgment.

Truth vs. Sellability: Framing Addiction

Worried and impatient — focused on avoiding political damage rather than intellectual purity.

Cuts across the medical argument with blunt political realism, repeatedly asserting the clinical framing is unsellable to the public and pressing for a more marketable line.

Science vs. Slogan — The Oval Showdown

Guarded and assertive, slightly impatient; he projects skepticism and a defensive posture toward idealistic policy arguments.

Al immediately rebuts Sam's statistics with a politically grounded, pragmatic objection: empirical and medical arguments are difficult to sell; slogans and law‑and‑order frames are quicker and more effective in public …

Lunch Break as Political Move — Al Isolated

Frustrated and defensive; his confidence in the political calculation is exposed and he becomes isolated and perhaps slightly humiliated as the room disperses.

Cuts in repeatedly to undercut the treatment argument as politically impractical, bluntly asserting that voters prefer simple 'tough on crime' messages and ultimately is left alone in the room when …

Apology Accepted — Bartlet Moves the Team to Moral Ground

Not present; represented as an off‑stage pressure — his polling haunts the room.

Al Kiefer is invoked indirectly via 'Kiefer's numbers' as a source of polling that scares staff; his presence functions as the quantitative counterweight to the moral argument, pressuring caution.

Midnight Reassurance — Bartlet Sets the Terms

Not present; his influence generates anxiety among staff.

Off-screen but invoked as a source of polling concern ('Kiefer's numbers got you scared?'); functions as the shorthand for data-driven risk assessment that unsettled the staff earlier in the day.