chunk: Popular Democratic President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) is preparing to run for re-election. The President and his staff, led by Chief of Staff and best friend A.J. MacInerney (Martin Sheen), attempt to consolidate the administration's 63% approval rating by passing a moderate crime control bill. However, support for the bill in both parties is tepid: conservatives do not want it, and liberals think it is too weak. If it passes, however, Shepherd's re-election is presumed by his staff to be a shoo-in, and Shepherd resolves to announce the bill, and the Congressional support to pass it, by the State of the Union.
  With the President of France about to arrive in the United States to attend a state dinner in his honor, Shepherd—widowed when his wife died of cancer three years earlier—is placed in an awkward predicament when his cousin Judith, with whom he had planned to attend the dinner, gets sick.