The President is rushed to hospital following a shooting; staffers field questions on protection measures and executive authority. Flashbacks show how key staff members joined the Bartlet campaign.

With hypothetical polling numbers showing them it will be political suicide, staffers prepare to announce the President's condition. As they do, a military crisis flares up in Haiti and Josh faces off against two senators who are against the Government's tobacco industry suit. But as badly as the day seems to be going, a tragedy will come from a car wreck at 18th and Potomac that will affect everything.

The staff is hunkered down in the Bartlets' hometown of Manchester, N.H., where they work with political consultants Bruno, Doug and Connie on the president's official announcement that he'll be seeking a second term; meanwhile, they all lament various W.H. events of the previous four weeks, including a huge strategic mistake by Josh, a pivotal FDA announcement scheduled for the same day as the president's speech, an ongoing battle between then president and first lady, and a major press room gaffe by C.J.

With the staff all bickering with one another in Manchester, especially adversarial speech writers Toby and Doug, who angrily disagree about whether Bartlet should make a public apology for lying about his MS, and with the president sniping at everyone, the second-term announcement speech is locked. Abby ultimately forgives the president for deciding to run again without discussing it with her, and he ultimately apologizes to the staff in private for keeping his condition from them, which they expect will soon lead to a whole slew of grand jury subpoenas.

After Bartlet gives a campaign speech at an Indiana farm, Josh, Toby and Donna are left behind by the presidential motorcade and must work their way across the state with the help of the farmer's daughter and, later, a teenage campaign volunteer, enduring many setbacks along the way. Josh and Toby obsess and bicker over how best to play the president's intellectualism, viewed by many as snobbery, against Republican opponent Robert Ritchie's "regular guy" persona, while Donna must keep them on track and communicate with the real Americans they encounter along the way. Back at the W.H., the president deals with a terrorist attack at an Iowa college swim meet, meets with Leo, Nancy and Fitzwallace to discuss how to handle the prospect of the U.S. and/or Israel being accused of a conspiracy in the assassination of Qumari defense minister Abdul Shareef, and interviews secretarial candidates, including a second round with Debbie Fiderer; the wandering party finally arrive at a city with an airport (presumably South Bend) and stop briefly at a nearby hotel, where they learn about the Iowa attack and Donna chastises the two men for caring only about the campaign and not the people it affects; later in the hotel bar, Josh and Toby meet a man trying to figure out how to pay his daughter's tuition to Notre Dame, and he inspires them to initiate new tax policy.

It is the day of Bartlet's second inauguration and yet the celebrations stutter as the staff are stunned by a betrayal in their midst.