Tommy Carcetti

Thomas J. Carcetti
First appearance	"Time after Time" (episode 3.01)
Last appearance	"–30–" (episode 5.10)
Created by	David Simon
Portrayed by	Aidan Gillen
Information
Aliases	Tommy (nickname)
Gender	Male
Occupation	Baltimore City Councilman Mayor of Baltimore Governor of Maryland
Title	Councilman Mayor Governor
Spouse(s)	Jen Carcetti

Thomas J. "Tommy" Carcetti (/kɑːrˈkɛti/ kar-KE-tee) is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by Aidan Gillen. Carcetti is an ambitious Baltimore politician who begins the series with a seat on the city council.

Biography

Season 3

Tommy Carcetti first appears as a member of the Baltimore City Council. Carcetti is a loving husband and a father, although he is unfaithful to his wife, Jen. He also works closely with Tony Gray, a fellow councilman. Carcetti is idealistic and ambitious, and has the backing of the local Democrats in Baltimore's 1st city council district as well as Baltimore Police major Stanislaus Valchek. To improve upon the crime and urban decay plaguing Baltimore, Carcetti considers running for mayor against the African-American incumbent, Clarence Royce, despite the prospect of being a white candidate in a predominantly black city.

Using his power and his connection to Valchek, Carcetti successfully manipulates acting-Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell into working with him, promising Burrell resources and political capital in exchange for inside information about Mayor Royce's decision-making. Carcetti becomes increasingly disillusioned with Royce, especially when Royce disregards Carcetti's proposal for a witness protection system in Baltimore. Carcetti makes up his mind to run against Royce, recruiting college friend and Washington political consultant Theresa D'Agostino as his campaign manager.

With Carcetti's encouragement, Gray starts his own campaign for mayor. Realizing that Gray's campaign would split the African American voter base in the election, D'Agostino advises Carcetti that enhancing Gray's chances of success would in turn improve Carcetti's. Carcetti dislikes the idea of abusing his friend's trust, but follows D'Agostino's strategy nonetheless.

After the BPD learns about "Hamsterdam" — Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin's drug-tolerant zones in West Baltimore — Royce refuses to allow the department to immediately shut them down, leading Burrell to suspect that Royce is making a play against the police. Burrell decides to leak the information to Carcetti as a means of attacking Royce. At D'Agostino's suggestion, Carcetti approaches Colvin and tours the area, seeing that Hamsterdam has had the positive impact of isolating the drug trade from the rest of Colvin's district.

Together with Gray, Carcetti uses Hamsterdam against Royce on the campaign trail. At the next city council meeting, Carcetti implicitly blames Royce for the Hamsterdam debacle in an impassioned speech. Through this, Gray realizes that Carcetti is running for Mayor without his knowledge or input. After Carcetti publicly launches his campaign, Gray ends both their alliance and their friendship. Carcetti's speech relies heavily on "war" rhetoric, including words such as "weapons" and "arsenal", which clashes with Colvin's view that such perspectives have made the War on Drugs unwinnable.

Season 4

Carcetti continues his campaign for mayor, with Teresa D'Agostino serving as his campaign strategist while the newly hired Norman Wilson his campaign manager who used to work at The Baltimore Sun. When early polls show low numbers for Carcetti, he assumes that he had already lost on the basis of his race and begins to lose interest in the campaign. Carcetti chooses not to prepare for an upcoming debate with Royce and Gray, believing that he could win the debate but still lose the election regardless.

Carcetti's debate performance is invigorated when he learns from Valchek that a state's witness was recently murdered. He uses this inside information and his previous request for a witness protection scheme to ambush Royce to great effect, even persuading adversary Tony Gray to publicly criticize Royce with the promise of a prominent council position in exchange for taking a large share of the vote that would otherwise potentially go to Royce. His confidence restored, Carcetti hits the campaign trail with renewed vigor, receiving assistance from black state delegate Odell Watkins. Carcetti convinces Watkins, who has had a falling out with Royce, to join his campaign. With his alliance with Watkins, Carcetti defeats Royce in a close but decisive Democratic primary election. In a city with a 9 to 1 Democratic advantage, Carcetti easily defeats a Republican named Crawford in the general election, winning with 81% of the vote.^[1]

As mayor-elect, Carcetti immediately makes changes before his inauguration. After discussions with city officials, he decides to replace Burrell as the commissioner of the BPD, planning to attract outside candidates while asking Burrell to resign. Burrell quickly realizes what is happening and rallies support from City Council President Nerese Campbell, corrupt State Senator Clay Davis, and a group of influential black ministers. Burrell orders an increase in arrests at Davis' suggestion, hoping to prove that the BPD is functioning well under his leadership. A frustrated Carcetti restricts Burrell's authority and insists that he clear his orders through Deputy Commissioner William Rawls.

Major Cedric Daniels, a politically neutral African American district commander, impresses Carcetti with his interest in securing quality felony arrests instead of statistically based reductions in crime. Carcetti offers Daniels a promotion to the Criminal Investigations Division and an automatic promotion to the rank of colonel. Through Daniels, Carcetti learns of Burrell's arrest hike and consequently orders the BPD to reform its approach by prioritizing quality felony cases over statistical quotas.

Carcetti's plans for the BPD are derailed when he learns that Baltimore's schools face a $54 million budget deficit. Carcetti and Wilson travel to Annapolis in order to convince the governor to bail out the schools. The governor does on the condition that Carcetti face public humiliation by publicly admitting to eliciting his aid. Carcetti rejects the offer, as it would be damaging to his own planned campaign for governor; Wilson is left disappointed at Carcetti's decision to put his ambition ahead of the needs of the city. Carcetti claims that he would be in a better place to help the city schools as governor.

Carcetti deals with a brutality complaint against BPD sergeant Thomas "Herc" Hauk. At Wilson and Rawls' suggestion, Carcetti decides to let Daniels, as Herc's former commanding officer, decide the punishment. Daniels decides that a reprimand for excessive force is sufficient punishment. Burrell approaches Carcetti to suggest that a more rigorous review of Herc is needed. Herc is forced to leave the BPD as an eventual result. Burrell is finally able to prove his usefulness to Carcetti by exploiting his political intellect, but Carcetti continues to consult Daniels on policing strategy.

Season 5

Carcetti's decision to reject the governor's bailout leaves him with intractable budget problems. He is forced to cut spending in other areas in order to plug the school budget deficit and is unable to keep his promises to reform the BPD. Despite the problems facing the city, Carcetti remains focused on running for governor two years into his term. Carcetti meets with Burrell and Rawls to discuss the BPD's problems, becoming concerned with crime statistics despite his prior decision to discourage stat-based policing. Morale in the BPD is at a low because Carcetti is withholding payment of overtime. The commissioners convince Carcetti to lift a cap on secondary employment for officers in order to improve their morale.

Carcetti's new chief of staff, Michael Steintorf, replaces Wilson as his primary advisor. Carcetti faces criticism from Wilson but still seeks his counsel. Meanwhile, he meets with the U.S. Attorney to discuss federal assistance in the vacant murders case. The U.S. Attorney, a Republican, desires federal handling of a corruption investigation against Davis. Carcetti refuses to allow Bond to make the case federal because he is worried it will be used to discredit Baltimore's Democratic Party.^[2][3]

Carcetti, intent on running for governor, alienates Watkins with his lack of attention to the city. Carcetti considers the prospect of being replaced by either Bond or Campbell, the latter of whom has become tainted by a corruption scandal. Carcetti also tries to find an issue to use against the governor.^[4][5] Rawls leaks BPD statistics to Carcetti showing a rising crime rate. When Burrell delivers manipulated statistics to Carcetti, the mayor finally has the political ammunition needed to have him fired. Carcetti plans to replace Burrell with Daniels, but is worried that he will not be accepted by Campbell and the ministers. He plans to temporarily promote Rawls to acting commissioner while Daniels prepares for the role as Deputy Commissioner of Operations. Carcetti leaks news of the plan to the press via Wilson to test the waters.^[6][7]

Carcetti offers favors to Campbell and the ministers to accept his plans for the department. Carcetti grants Campbell permission for the demolition of the McCullough homes, a housing project that is adjacent to Andy Krawczyk's latest building development. Campbell convinces Burrell to leave office quietly by promising him a lucrative replacement position. Carcetti reluctantly accepts the deal when Campbell hints that Burrell has knowledge of corrupt activity in Daniels' past, but Carcetti remains unaware of the specifics. Carcetti officially announces his plans for the BPD at a press conference.^[8]

In the end of series montage, it is shown that Carcetti's political machinations have succeeded and he has been elected governor of Maryland. Campbell, as the city council president, succeeds him as mayor for the remainder of his term. Rawls and Valchek are promoted to superintendent of the Maryland State Police and Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department, respectively.

Critical response

Entertainment Weekly named Carcetti one of the five most interesting characters in season four.^[10]

Character inspiration

A fictionalized version of the events of the 1999 Baltimore mayoral election were presented in third and fourth seasons of The Wire, which aired in 2004 and 2006, respectively.^[9] Many saw the connection between Carcetti and Martin O'Malley, an Irish-American Baltimore City Councillor who was elected mayor, defeating two African American opponents. Carlos Watson of MSNBC once introduced O'Malley as "one of the real-life inspirations for the mayor of the hit TV show The Wire", to which O'Malley responded that he was instead the show's "antidote".^[11]

Show creator David Simon denied that the character of Tommy Carcetti was supposed to be O'Malley.^[12] Simon did acknowledge that O'Malley was "one of several inspirations" for Carcetti.^[13] He further stated that while Carcetti was "reflective" of O'Malley, Carcetti was a composite drawing aspects from other local politicians that he had covered when he worked as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun.

References