Two years ago, Martin Sheen – or rather, President Josiah Bartlet from New Hampshire – was campaigning for Howard Dean in the New Hampshire primary. But before Sheen could appear at Dean’s Manchester event, he had another stop scheduled: Josiah Bartlett Elementary School, in Bartlett, N.H.

These days in American politics, reality and show business are as intertwined as New Hampshire and Vermont.

Sunday night, with the last episode of “The West Wing,” the Bartlet administration came to an end, although with reruns and cable Bartlet will probably be in office longer than Franklin D. Roosevelt. The fantasy White House of a considerable part of the voting public is emptying out.

Millions of Americans have gotten through the last five years on a “West Wing” and a prayer.

Partly, it was a Democratic dream world where Bill Clinton never imploded and George W. Bush never got elected, where a strong, smart Democrat endured in the Oval Office and fended off the Republican Congress.

At least it could be true for one hour a week.

(By the end of the final episodes, not only had a Democrat been elected to succeed Bartlet, but the party had retaken the House. The intoxication of the idea made it very hard for some viewers to settle down enough to watch “Desperate Housewives.”)

Originally, the idea was to have Martin Sheen – sorry, President Bartlet – as an occasional figure, in a show focused on the staff. Gradually, Bartlet became a more dominating figure.

Presidents do that.

As the show moved into the Bush administration, Sheen seemed to become even smarter, even more articulate, as writer-creator Aaron Sorkin’s eloquence honed an ever more pointed contrast with the real West Wing’s occupant. In an episode about an Iowa college fire, Bartlet told a campus memorial gathering, “the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we’ve measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we’re reminded that that capacity may well be limitless.”

If Clinton had been able to control certain appetites, the Democrats might still be in the White House. If Sorkin had been able to control his interest in hallucinogenic mushrooms, “West Wing” might still be continuing.

But fundamentally, the show was not just about Democrats being more successful – not to say better-looking – than in reality. It was about people convinced that politics and government are an important and noble activity. It showed people willing to be battered and exhausted in pursuit of their political goals and their commitment to each other.

Over seven seasons, the description also fit a number of Republicans, from a speaker of the House to an assistant White House counsel to the GOP candidate to succeed Bartlet. True, it was Alan Alda, but he was still a noble Republican.

These days, of course, that’s not exactly the public’s general impression of politicians of either party. But once a week, people appeared on television trying to use government to get somewhere – while also worrying about polls, careers and love lives.

It’s been a White House of people always aware they’re in the world’s best place to try to do something. And if the show sometimes outran any reality – one week it settled the Israeli-Palestinian problem – at least it believed that things were possible.

“The people who work there really believe in what they’re doing,” Paul Begala, a Clinton adviser, told USA Today about the White House. “It is not a cynical place, and ‘West Wing’ is not a cynical show.”

In one episode, press secretary C.J. Cregg – the superlative Allison Janney – is arguing with another staff member about an arms deal with a Middle Eastern country known for its medieval treatment of women. After she rolls through the policy questions, her face crumples in agony and she bursts out, “They’re beating the women!”

Then she instantly resumes her game face, goes into the White House press room and calmly, wittily, begins the afternoon’s press briefing.

Compassion and control are two traits that we’ve largely given up on in our politicians.

“The inspiring president for your generation was Kennedy,” one young political activist said recently. “For us it was Bartlet.”

On Sunday night, Bartlet’s time in the White House ended. He may not get a school named after him, but it feels as if he’s taught us something.