STEVE HILDEBRAND
The South Dakota native served as Obama’s deputy national director during the campaign. A veteran of South Dakota House and Senate campaigns, he managed Tom Daschle’s losing re-election bid in 2004, Senator Tim Johnson’s re-election in 2002 and Al Gore’s Iowa caucus victory in 2000.


DAVID PLOUFFE
This masterful campaigner was credited by Obama as the “unsung hero” of his historic victory. The typically low-profile Plouffe stepped in to the spotlight when his folksy YouTube updates were beamed to millions of supporters. Plouffe’s wife, Olivia Morgan, gave birth to the couple’s second daughter two days after Obama’s election.


TED KAUFMAN
President of the Wilmington-based consulting firm Public Strategies and Biden’s chief of staff for the last 19 years, Kaufman will take over the vice president’s old job in the Senate, ending rumors that Beau Biden would be appointed to  the seat his father occupied for the last 36 years.


JULIANNA SMOOT
Smoot, a national finance director for Obama’s presidential campaign,  helped raise an unprecedented $32.5 million during the second quarter of 2007. During the 2006 election cycle, she served as finance director for the DSCC and raised record sums..




TEMO FIGUEROA
As national field director for Obama’s campaign, Figueroa organized an unprecedented four-day program called Camp Obama, which trained the most active volunteers in community organizing techniques, and encouraged them to train others, thereby creating independent cells from campaign HQ.


MARK GITENSTEIN
One of Joe Biden’s most trusted advisors, Gitenstein represented the VP on early transition matters (which his boss was too superstitious to discuss), despite having raisied eyebrows  among the staunch “anti-lobbyist” wing of the Democratic party over his years of lobbying experience.


CHRISTINE VARNEY
The Hogan & Hartson lawyer, now serving as personnel counsel for the Obama-Biden Transition Project, was a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter who served in Bill Clinton’s administration as a federal trade commissioner and secretary of the cabinet. A voice for responsibility in technology, she brings expertise to an already tech savvy administration.


JOHN PODESTA
Known for his straight-talk and wit, Podesta has spent the last eight years presiding over a sort of “liberal government in exile” at the think tank he founded, the Center for American Progress. Unlike his fellow transition team co-chairs, Podesta declined a position in the new administration, pledging to return to C.A.P.

Power, above all, is influence. New York Fashion week bloggers tell Americans with authority that this is the year of the [insert arbitrary skirt length], and America purchases accordingly. The Washington socialite-hostess gathers the ripe fruit of political, economic, and cultural orchards and serves it up as one fabulous cherry bombe at a charity fundraiser or a private soiree with Cabinet secretaries and other major political players. Two men shake hands in the U.S. Senate and a bill passes – or doesn’t. The influence to effect change, be it in the minds or actions of one’s fellow man, is simultaneously the most ephemeral quantity (how does one qualify or rate it?) and the biggest driving force on our planet.

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