They're both equally laughable in the opposite directions.
^This^
The nauseating idealism and hackishness of the West Wing and the dark cynicism of House of Cards are equally unrealistic. The best tv-series to get a real sense of politics is Borgen, which doesn't really apply to the American political system.
How exactly is Borgen any less idealistic than West Wing?
I could make a long list, but to name a few examples, Nyborg is constantly struggling with her popularity numbers (which for most of the series are implied to be bad), often has to compromise with her principles and ideals, alienate several friends and her husbands because of her job and ultimately, in the end, looses reelection and only gets to come back as a junior partner in the least worst of two bad coalition alternatives. She also has to be manipulating and conniving at times to outsmart people like Laugusen who belong more in House of Cards than anywhere else.
The West Wing also has plenty of backroom dealing and dirty tricks, and the US lawmaking process certainly isn't shown as something clean and smooth. The WW characters aren't exactly pure innocent wide-eyed idealistic heroes, they all have huge character flaws and act like assholes at one time ore another. While Bartlett ends up getting his way in terms of legislative outcomes far more often than would be realistic, so does Nyborg (come on, how many time in the show does a bill she supports actually end up failing?). And while WW got a bit silly when it comes to elections, the original script did have the Republican winning in 2006, and they only changed it to honor John Spencer's memory. I've watched both shows and, while they differ in many respects, the idealism/cynicism scale isn't one of them.
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