In season two, now-President Palmer again called on Bauer to protect the nation from an imminent nuclear threat. He endured the betrayal of his wife, the Lady Macbeth-like Sherry Palmer (Penny Johnson Jerald), and yet another assassination attempt, this time by a hand-to-hand transfer of a deadly pathogen.
"It was something like ricin," Haysbert says. "It was shutting down the internal organs."
Of course, no actor likes to read a scene like that in a season finale.
"I called my people," Haysbert remembers, "and said, 'We'd better start looking for something else to do. I think I'm going down in the last episode.'"
There were serious questions among the show's producers about whether the Palmer administration should continue, but right now, executive producer Howard Gordon has no regrets.
"Dennis is such a powerful actor," he says. "On the strength of his power, we struggled to find a place for him in the story this year. I absolutely would confess that it was a little more difficult to find his stories this year, but we just love him so much that we couldn't imagine the show without him."
Jumping ahead a few years in time, season three opened with Palmer still feeling a few aftereffects from his brush with death, but nevertheless vigorously involved in getting reelected.
As Bauer tracks a deadly virus that's fallen into terrorist hands, Palmer copes with a potential political disaster -- his brother and advisor (D.B. Woodside) dallied with the wife (Gina Torres) of powerful political supporter Alan Milliken (Albert Hall).
Although it seems real presidents cause a huge uproar every time they travel out of the White House, Palmer seemed able to slip away from a regional office in Los Angeles -- where he went after the virus crisis interrupted a campaign debate -- and have a secret meeting with Milliken.
"I don't know why anybody would take a motorcade anywhere," Haysbert says. "If I was the president in Los Angeles, I'd get around in a Volkswagen."
Gordon says, "He can do it about as easily as the Cabinet was able to assemble and try to oust him last season. It falls under the suspension-of-disbelief category. Of course, we need a suspension bridge the size of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
"As long as it honors the emotional reality of the characters, we're safe. When we betray that, is my far greater concern than how well this guy can maneuver."
And while actual presidents seem to have large and hovering staffs, Palmer limits most of his conversations to his brother, Sherry, and the occasional Secret Service agent.
"He has trouble finding people he can trust," Haysbert says.
"They're asleep," Gordon says about the rest of Palmer's people. "I feel he's a little underpopulated, I certainly agree. That may speak to the idea, too, that his presidency is under siege. When that happens, you wind up constricting your circle of advisors."
After all, it's not like anyone sees Palmer debating health-care bills or working out a plan to save Social Security.
"I'm the crisis president," Haysbert jokes. "I never get to really deal with my administration. When everybody sees me, I'm in crisis mode all the time."
"I can't speak to Bartlet," Gordon says, "because I haven't seen 'The West Wing' this year, but Palmer's presidency is under siege. He's made moral compromises. We're taking him to a place from which he may not be able to return."
Regarding Palmer's political stances, Gordon says, "Honestly, we haven't thought about it, because God knows what his politics are. I think they're being challenged, though. He's having to do so much improvisation, that it's unclear what his politics are."
As the first black president on television or in real life, Palmer is not based on any one political figure. But, he does share characteristics with two men who have been president, and one who serves the current president.
"I've based him not on people whom I've met," Haysbert says, "but people I admire. He's a combination of Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell and Bill Clinton. He's got Carter's diplomatic ability, his heart, which probably hurt him in Washington. And just the incredible intelligence of Bill Clinton."
And what about Powell? "His dignity," Haysbert says, "and his integrity, which I think has taken a big blow."
