Last night on CBS’ The Good Wife, an episode titled “Winning Ugly”dramatized a ballot tampering cover-up by Democrat party officials desperate to maintain a super-majority in the Illinois State Senate. The victim of the ploy was a fellow Democrat, the show’s heroine Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies). There was no moral ambiguity: the Democrats were ruthless villains out to achieve their ends by any means necessary. Florrick, recently elected State Attorney, was framed, then told to accept her fate for the good of the party by officials who sounded like Politburo members. One online re-capper nailed the morality in a headline: It’s Their Party and They’ll Lie if They Want To.

Such ethics are true to the episode’s Cook County setting, but what a surprise to see that Chicago on network prime time! And it’s not the first time. The episode gives credence to a claim by the show’s writer-producers that their writers’ room is politically and religiously diverse. Last week they did a timely moot court debate acknowledging the conflict between same sex marriage and religious freedom. In March, the program earned praise from no less than Brent Bozell for an episode touching on abortion.

I’ve seen all of The Good Wife, and this political tack to the center is a relatively recent phenomenon. So riddled was the show with liberal assumptions that I’d have stopped watching long ago were it not for its beautiful look – classy production design, great costumes, attractive cast – and the decisive vote of my wife, who is fascinated with Margulies’ intelligent, introverted interpretation of her character.

Could the show now be balancing its politics to broaden its reach?

According to Ad Age’s pre-season pricing chart estimates, The Good Wife was attracting only $87,210 per thirty second spot this past fall, low for a Sunday night series. Family Guy on Fox hauled in double that, while Sunday Night Football on NBC tallied a blow out win with an estimated $627,300 per commercial unit. The Good Wife has few action scenes and favors mature, intelligent characters, so it skews old. The program fights back against demographic discrimination with regular forays into the tech world, legal cases and familial conflicts built around smartphones, social media, a geek of the week or two shoehorned into the cast, presumably to attract the youth market. The show has been described as “on the bubble” – with a crucial renewal hanging on each ratings point.

Have the producers figured out that just a few conservatives with ratings meters could make the difference? Or perhaps co-creator Robert King means it when he says, “This show in theory wants to ease you out of your comfort zone and say, okay look at it from this point of view now.” It may be a smart strategy. “Winning Ugly” is getting a 9.4/10 on the IMDB viewer approval scale, a new peak in a recent trend upward.