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New Jersey Politicians
Ed Bader
Edward Lawrence "Ed" Bader
Played By: Kevin O'Rourke
"Let's get something straight. Nucky Thompson does not run this city. I do!"
A prominent construction businessman in Atlantic City, he accepts Nucky's offer to run for Mayor in the 1920 local elections when the incumbent republican starts to lose steam and wins. He knows that he is nothing but Nucky's pawn, and the common folk laughs at his attempts to appear otherwise.
- Authority in Name Only: Everybody laughs when he tries to deny being a mayoral marionette of Nucky Thompson.
- Casual Kink: He likes some erotic spanking.
- Turncoat: In Season 4 he joins Narcisse's camp, betraying Nucky and Chalky, by extension.
- Unwitting Pawn: Subverted. He knows he has no real power as mayor but he plays along so he can manage his construction business.
Harry Bacharach
Harry Bacharach
Played By: John Rue
Bader's predecessor as Mayor of Atlantic City.
Frank Hague
Frank Hague
Played By: Chris Mulkey
"I'm just proposing we call a spade, a spade."
The corrupt mayor of Jersey City. Unlike his homologues in Atlantic City who are just pawns of Nucky, he is in full charge of his town and deals with Nucky himself.- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He could apparently side, backstab and come back to Nucky multiple times in the same week. History
tells us that he was already doing that years before the timeframe of the show. - Demoted to Extra: He only appears in the second season to introduce Jack Dempsey to Nucky.
- The Hypocrite: A very pragmatic one, he is a Democrat, but doesn't bat an eye at doing nefarious deals with Republican politicians. Also, while he does not care about women's rights he does care a lot about their votes.
- Only in It for the Money: Even when compared to other characters.
- Pet the Dog: Arguably gets such a moment when he tells Nucky that Senator Edge is backstabbing Nucky, even though said backstabbing benefited Hague.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He is a corrupt whoremonger that does not believe in female suffrage and defends women battering.
- Straw Misogynist: He is put in his place by Margaret right after his introduction.
Nucky Thompson
Enoch Malachi "Nucky" Thompson
See Boardwalk Empire Thompson Family Louis Kaestner
Louis "Lou" Kaestner a.k.a. "The Commodore"
See Boardwalk Empire Darmody Familyand AssociatesWashington, D.C. Politicians and Aides
Walter Edge
Walter Evans Edge
Played By: Geoff Pierson
"It was just politics. I'll make for it later."
US Senator for the State of New Jersey and the owner of a construction firm. Nucky was his campaign manager, believing that Edge would return the favor once elected by helping pass bills for the construction of roads that would benefit Atlantic City.- Ambition Is Evil: His desire to become the president of the United States is presented this way.
- I Lied: He gives the promised road funding to Hague... who promptly stabs him in the back and tells Nucky about it.
- Ironic Echo: When Eddie tells Edge that they are out of Pimm's, Edge looks back to Nucky and says that he can't expect to have everything. The next day, Nucky sends Edge a few crates of Pimm's with a note saying "I do expect to have everything."
- Spanner in the Works: Edge appears at least one time per season to cause trouble for Nucky back in DC. In the first, he allocates his promised road funding to Frank Hague; in the second, he presses Daugherty to assign a more professional attorney to handle Nucky's corruption case. In the third season he doesn't even make it willingly: he heads a Senate investigation about the poor enforcement of the 18th Amendment that puts heat on Daugherty, Daugherty tells Nucky to be more discreet and he cuts all liquor sales except Rothstein's. Cue war with Gyp Rosetti (and Daugherty indicting Nucky anyway).
- Straw Misogynist: Like Hague, he only supports women's vote "on the record".
Harry Daugherty
Harry Micajah Daugherty
Played By: Christopher McDonald
"You have heard I play ball."
The massively corrupt campaign manager of Warren Harding and US Attorney General after his presidential election. Nucky uses his connections to help Harding get the nomination in exchange for some favors in the future, but when he finally needs them Daugherty just keeps making excuses.- Actor Allusion: He takes Nucky to golf in "Gimcrack and Bunkum". McDonald played the bad guy in Happy Gilmore.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Of Season 3. At the beginning of the story arc, it is revealed that he is conspiring to indict Nucky Thompson to divert public attention away from a Congressional investigation into his department's criminal activities.Upon learning of his plans, Nucky spends a substantial portion of the season working to engineer his downfall. In the end, he is neutralized as a threat early on in the season and merely serves as a distraction to the greatest danger to Nucky's family and associates: the bloodthirsty gangster, Gyp Rosetti
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Jess Smith. Gaston Means says that some have cast doubts on the heterosexual part (and the fact they share a hotel room does not shut these in the least).
- I Lied: He phones Nucky twice to tell him that, in essence, he is not saving his ass.
- The Man Behind the Man: To Harding.
- Protectorate: He will consider anything before harming Jess Smith. It takes a Manipulative Bastard of Gaston Means' caliber to convince him of the opposite.
- Put on a Bus: His downfall takes place offscreen, with Nucky simply reading about it in the paper.
- Sleazy Politician: And almost open about it. Nucky is baffled to find that he has already things to hide when he has been in office for less than three months.
- Visual Metaphor: He puts on green shoes when he decides to sell Nucky down the river in order to save himself.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He even boasts about outmatching Nucky in this regard.
Jess Smith
Jess W. Smith
Played By: Ed Jewett
"Bootleggers are the people we are in business with!"
Harry Daugherty's best friend and gofer who actually holds no official position in Washington. He is the middleman between Daugherty and George Remus.- Ambiguously Gay: His close relationship with Daugherty has already given rise to rumours.
- Childhood Friends: With Daugherty.
- Driven to Suicide: After Means is discovered trying to kill him.
- Early-Bird Cameo: He prevents Nan Britton from entering Harding's campaign party in season one's "Hold Me in Paradise", although he is played by a
different actor.
- Hated by All: Everyone but Daugherty has contempt for him.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Harry Daugherty. Well, Daugherty is at least his.
- Historical In-Joke: Smith is remembered today only because of his well-timed, high profile suicide at the worst of the Harding administration scandals in 1923. Almost every author defends that he was murdered to keep him quiet, so the show writers were free to write in any conspiracy they wanted, and in his last episode both Nucky and Daugherty are shown considering his assassination. Smith actually manages to thwart this assassination, only to reach the Despair Event Horizon upon realizing Daugherty, his only friend, was behind the attempt, and kill himself on the spot, technically proving history right.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When the whole scheme begins to crash down, he regrets his decision to leave Ohio.
- The Other Darrin: Played by an extra in the first season.
- Took a Level in Badass: In "A Man, A Plan...". After spending most of the third season as what Means calls a "blabbering walrus" he fools his would-be assassin and holds him at gunpoint.
- Villainous Breakdown: In the third season.
Andrew William Mellon
Andrew William Mellon
Played By: James Cromwell
"Daugherty is nothing but a shabby little huckster."
The US Secretary of the Treasury and therefore the person responsible for upholding taxes and Prohibition, despite the fact that he hates both. Also one of the richest men in the country.- Adaptation Haircut: The real Mellon had a mustache and a head full of hair in the timeframe of the show. The crew obviously valued more having Cromwell than hairdressing accuracy though.
- Characterizing Sitting Pose: Used to illustrate his power compared to Nucky, a man of impressive standing on his own. During their meeting at the country club, Nucky sits tensely poised and upright while Mellon lounges comfortably and at ease.
- Corrupt Politician: He's portrayed as more professional than most of Harding's administration, but he still allows Nucky to run the Overholt Distillery and collect the profits.
- Democracy Is Bad: Says so to Nucky.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: Like most others in the Executive Branch, he knows that Prohibition worked better as an idea rather than a reform; it doesn't stop him from working with Nucky. He also criticizes the income tax's questionable legality despite being the man to manage it.Nucky: The income tax.Mellon: Sanctioned robbery, with no constitutional basis.Nucky: And Prohibition?Mellon: A child's idea at morality.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: He thinks that the Volstead Act was a very bad idea, but he fights to enforce it, rather to profit from it like Daugherty.
- Irony: Randolph is shocked to discover that he owns a distillery, although it has been out of work since the beginning of Prohibition.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: To Nucky in "The Pony" when Nucky tries to pull a "Not So Different" Remark with him. Mellon makes the deal proposed at the end of the episode, however.
