Who Really Runs Washington?

You already know the star players and big names in President Obama's regime. You've heard about David Axelrod, the campaign guru, and Larry Summers, the controversy-prone former president of Harvard, who both now serve as top White House advisers. Obama's campaign nemesis, Hillary Clinton, is of course, a household name. But sometimes it's the lesser-known figures who make the biggest mark.

In partnership with the Web site Who Runs Gov, here's the inside rundown on the most important but largely invisible hands in Obama's Washington. We've divided them into two categories: friends of Obama and his agenda, and those lesser-known wonks and politicos who are fighting him tooth and nail.

Mike Strautmanis is part of a close circle of Chicago friends that surround the Obamas in Washington. Strautmanis formed a friendship with the future first couple while working as a paralegal at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. He was part of the Clinton administration, and worked for the trial lawyers' association before putting down roots in Obama's Senate office. As Obama BFF Valerie Jarrett's chief of staff at the White House, he provides a sounding board for progressive groups upset with the path of health-care reform, and he helped beat back claims that the president's plan would result in "death panels" that could ultimately affect his autistic son. Strautmanis also spends much of his time building bridges to the business community and acts as a representative of Obama both inside and outside the White House.

Michele Flournoy , the Department of Defense under secretary for policy, has quietly been involved in just about every foreign-policy move in the new administration. After it leaked that Obama would be canceling a missile-defense shield in Central Europe, it was Flournoy who was sent to mollify surprised Czech and Polish leaders. She was dispatched to Capitol Hill recently to brief wary lawmakers about the way forward in Afghanistan. Flournoy has also been an emphatic voice for closing the terrorist detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, and took the lead in writing the Quadrennial Defense Review due out this fall, which will determine future U.S. strategic posture. With defense chief Robert Gates not expected to stay at the Pentagon for the long haul, watch for Flournoy's star to rise even higher.

Beth Noveck , the deputy White House chief technology officer, is known for introducing a collaborative process to the U.S. Patent Office, and she is now bringing Gov 2.0 technology to the White House. Her first endeavor was crowd-sourcing President Obama's transparency policy—or Open Government Directive—a move that invited over 900 user-generated ideas and 305 citizen drafts (which are currently being reviewed by the White House). Some of those public recommendations were not exactly original (legalizing marijuana, Obama's birth certificate, UFOs), but the White House still considers the effort a success.

Herbert M. Allison Jr . With all of the outrage over massive executive bonuses during the economic crisis, Allison was the rare exception. He came out of retirement (he was literally vacationing in the Caribbean when he got the call from Bush Treasury secretary Henry Paulson) to take over the reins of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae in September 2008. Allison refused a salary, (the 28-year Merrill Lynch exec probably doesn't need the money). Obama officials initially didn't want to steal Allison from Fannie for a top Treasury post. But they did so anyway; in April 2009, Allison became the overseer of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program known as TARP. Taxpayers have already earned $4 billion in interest from bailing out Wall Street. "We have stepped back from the brink," Allison said in Sept. 24 testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Patrick Gaspard . Unlike Axelrod, whose wide-ranging job title is "adviser" to Obama, Gaspard is the actual head of the White House Political Affairs shop. He's a Haitian immigrant who plays hardball politics from his time as a top labor leader in New York. Gaspard is part of a team of White House aides leading an aggressive drive to recruit, and stymie, candidates for 2010 races across the country. The group has emphatically backed party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter over Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate primary, and urged the Massachusetts legislature to quickly decide how to fill the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Recently, Gaspard was the one to deliver the bad news to New York Gov. David Paterson that the president would prefer he didn't run to retain his seat next year.

David Blumenthal , the former staffer for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, is playing a key role in another health-care-reform debate, one that has largely flown under the radar despite its enormous implications for doctors and patients. Twenty billion dollars was quietly inserted into the February 2009 economic-stimulus bill to spark a digital health-care revolution: in other words, create electronic medical records to replace the current paper ones. The goal is a single electronic file for each patient, which could be accessed by any hospital or doctor no matter the patient's location. As a former doctor and health-care policy professor, lobbying for electronic medical records is Blumenthal's professional calling. Though the switch will cost a bundle at the start, advocates say the efficiency of the new system is expected to pay off handsomely with future cost savings.

Lisa Heinzerling , the former Georgetown law professor, is the Obama Environmental Protection Agency's leading voice on climate change. Heinzerling is best known for her leading role in helping the state of Massachusetts prosecute a successful 2007 Supreme Court case obligating the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases that could cause global warming. Though the Bush EPA dragged its feet on implementing new rules, within months of Heinzerling's arrival on her new job, greenhouse gases were officially declared a public-health hazard. Next up: convincing the Senate, already weary of the health-care-reform fight, to approve a controversial cap-and-trade program.

Thomas J. Donohue , the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, can put his money where his mouth is when it comes to fighting Obama's agenda. His association of big businesses is probably the best-funded foe of the so-called "public option" and bankrolled upward of $2 million in television ads against "expanded government control of health care." The anti-health-care-reform ads targeted lawmakers in key states such as Indiana, Arkansas, Colorado, and Kentucky. The chamber has already been successful in killing one Obama initiative that labor fiercely backs: the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier to unionize.

Karen Ignagni . Before the August congressional recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally labeled the health-insurance companies the "villains in all of this," meaning health-care reform. Now, it seems that Ignagni and her powerful organization, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), are playing the part. Originally, Ignagni seemed to be cautiously cooperating with Obama, attending the March 2009 White House health-reform summit and supporting certain planks for reform. But she and AHIP have always opposed a public option and recently came out against Sen. Max Baucus's new plan that would create health-care cooperatives to drive down costs. Ignagni and AHIP argue that costs would not be contained, and they are now rallying their 1,300 member companies (including powerhouse insurers Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield) and 200 million clients to instead take the fight to Obama.