A Lesson from THE WIRE

I have become interested enough in the parallel between Dennis Kucinich and Tommy Carcetti, the white politician who got elected Mayor of Baltimore in Season Four of The Wire, to do some Web surfing on Carcetti. It was too much to expect to find any script texts on the Web, but Andy Sywak is maintaining an interesting blog called "A Thousand Corners," which has some nice observations. Here is one nice passage about Carcetti from December 4, 2006:

Let’s all remember Wee-Bey’s advice to his son in prison earlier this year, “Either you for real nigga or you ain’t.” It mirrors Daniels’ question to Carcetti, “How for real are you?” That’s what this episode ["That's Got His Own," from Season Four] was about and to a certain extent what “The Wire” is about: who’s for real and who isn’t? Who is willing to put, as Michael says, “somethin’ real behind your words.”

Carcetti is for real. He goes and “begs his Republican ass” the governor for school money and then smiles as he has to eat another bowl of shit when even the icy Madame Washington tells him, “I’m glad I’m not the Mayor,” before telling him she’s gonna go after him no matter what he decides. Carcetti, modeled in many ways after the current Baltimore mayor and governor-elect of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, has been a joy to watch this season.

From afar, being the mayor of a major American city and calling the shots looks to be an envious job full of all sorts of perks and privileges. But you watch Carcetti this season, and it all looks like one gigantic headache followed by another. You constantly have to make deals with unsavory people (Clay Davis) and make policy compromises that will demonize you to a chunk of the population. You constantly have to watch your back for ambitious opponents (Washington) and prostrate yourself for the right people (the Governor).

The man’s gonna have a head full of gray hairs in no time.

The reference to the bowl of shit comes from a parable told to Carcetti by one of the old (white) pols before he is sworn in as Mayor. I really wanted to reproduce the text of the whole parable but could not find it on the Web. However, the punch line is simple: When you become Mayor, every day brings someone coming to your office giving you another bowl of shit to eat.

I feel it is important to remember this parable going into the New Hampshire Primary, because, as far as I can tell, the only difference between a Mayor and the President comes down to the number of people who come into your office and the size of the bowl they are handing you. Yes, I am glad that Barak Obama named The Wire as his favorite television program; but I hope he has been "reading the text" for more than entertainment. I have now seen the first episode of the new season through HBO On Demand. Carcetti is already cracking under the strain and being haunted by the "new day" metaphor on which he based his campaign. When I heard that "new day" metaphor coming from our "real" candidates (Obama?), my only reaction was to wince.

Recently I have been harping on the need for a "sense of reality," borrowing the phrase from a collection of Isaiah Berlin essays. I agree with Sywak that much of The Wire has been about the need for that sense of reality and what happens when it is sacrificed. Just about every narrative within the whole series has involved deterioration (of a character or an institution) when that sense of reality is lost. We should all think about this as the race for the White House gets more intense.