Washington's Run by People You Don't Know

GQ
Dino Grandoni 1,617 Views Jan 18, 2012

Last week, The Village Voice's Steven Thrasher ranked "The 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers" and it was full of people who rarely hear about. On Wednesday, GQ's biennial "50 Most Powerful People in Washington" was released and it, too, is filled out by names you don't know. Power and fame, apparently, have little in common. Sure, the GQ list has some household name politicians (Obama foe Rep. Eric Cantor comes in at No. 1), but just a bit lower down the list are are not very public figures like Tommy Boggs (No. 14), whose lobbying for Mars Inc. got a candy bar sent to nearly every U.S. serviceman. Or Nancy Hogan (No. 30), who interviews every potential hire from the top down for the Obama administration. Or Brian Deese (No. 31), the 31-year-old in charge of rebuilding GM and Chrysler. GQ's headline point is that the GOP has gained an edge since its 2010 list, which had Democrats and Obama officials dominating the top spots. But we can't help but notice that in the same way that the powerless stay anonymous, the powerful mostly white males who dominated the list seem to want to stay that way, too.

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