Obama's quiet, tightly wound campaign manager is a one-man political database.
It was clear from the start that Plouffe would be the campaign's organizational mastermind. At a strategy session in December 2006, Obama asked about putting together a plan for the primaries. Plouffe (above, second from left) had already worked it out in his head, and spelled out for Obama the state-by-state strategy the campaign would ultimately execute. Now, along with overseeing that plan, he is in charge of all the campaign's many moving parts--media, staff, fund-raising, travel. Plouffe, who went to Obama through chief ...