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32. Yes, they did. Jimmy Smits' 2005 turn as unlikely victor Matt Santos was, indeed, inspired by a rising senator by the name of Barack Obama. "We spoke to political consultants about what a minority campaign would look like," Wells told Empire. "They said, 'Well there's this young senator out of Illinois that people are talking about a little bit,' which turned out to be Barack Obama. They basically laid out for us what they thought the campaign strategy would have to be for him to ever run for president, although they kept telling us the whole time, 'It'll never happen, of course.'"