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 GQ recently unveiled its list of the 50 Most Powerful People in Washington, a look at who's up in the nation's status-obsessed capital. But power is fluid in Washington, and it's wielded in ever-changing ways, from the city's establishment bosses to its hungry young strivers. So now we're bringing you the most powerful person in D.C. this week (and the least powerful): a mini-guide to the players in American politics and why they matter now. 
 
 
 
 Most Powerful Person in Politics: Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State 
 
 Those who doubt Hillary's viability in 2016 should take note of the viral meme "Texts From Hillary." It's a Tumblr that pairs a photo of HRC looking like a boss on a C-17 with even more boss quotes, retweeted ad infinitum this week. How much do Washington women love the texts? "For attribution: omgsomuch," EMILY's List spokesperson Jess McIntosh emails. "It's just the idea that Hillary is a force to be reckoned with, and she is still very relevant among Americans," says Stacy Lambe, one of D.C.'s young communications professionals who came up with the idea with a friend over drinks last week. "We just captured on a simple idea about who she is, this whole 'head bitch, in-charge, badass' image that the photo itself demonstrated and we just had fun with that. It wasn't a commentary on anything, but the success might be due to the fact that there's this appreciation for her that has grown since she took over as Secretary of State. I think people have learned to appreciate who she is and value her again." 
 
 ||||| Clinton: Stop talking. 
 
 Worried woman: It’s 3 a.m. and I think something’s happening. 
 
 Clinton: On it. 
 
 Like most Internet sensations, the “Texts from Hillary” took a winding path from artifact to thing. When the photo first appeared last fall, a blogger from Reuters suggested that it made Clinton look bad: stuck on a plane, overloaded with work, falling asleep in her chair. “Quick quiz,” he wrote. “You realize your job may sort of suck if you . . . are trying to read your PDA with your sunglasses on.” 
 
 But when the photo turned up, inexplicably, on his Facebook feed last week, Adam Smith saw it differently. Smith, 29, who works for a campaign-finance nonprofit in Washington, D.C., reposted the shot on Twitter with a comment along the lines of, “Have you seen how fierce Hillary is in this picture?” 
 
 Last Wednesday at a bar, Smith showed the photo to his friend Stacy Lambe, 26, who works for a D.C. communications firm. “I said, ‘Have you seen this Hillary picture? I think we could make a meme out of it’ ” Smith told me by phone. “And he said, ‘Texts from Hillary.’ And I said, ‘Done.’ ” They went home and started a Tumblr blog, and before long, people were sending suggestions of their own. 
 
 Nearly every contribution falls along the same theme: Hillary’s not beleaguered, she’s in charge. This is the story the photo tells. The frown makes her seem impatient. The sunglasses make her look aloof, but also glamorous. Gone are the man’s-world accessories, the pantsuit and masculine haircut. Secretary Clinton is a woman, comfortably feminine, with long blonde hair, a chunky necklace, a giant broach. 
 
 And, crucially, she’s texting. In an age of impersonal communications, there’s no medium more distant or nonchalant. Texting requires no utterance, no grammar, no coherent thought, and barely any physical effort. (The other day, a friend texted me: “k.” I knew what she meant.) To send a text is to say, “I’m sending you this message with my thumbs. That’s all you get of me.” ||||| It’s been an overwhelming–and hilarious–week for us here at Texts from Hillary (TFH). What started as a joke at the bar between two friends turned into a national conversation about Secretary Clinton and went as far as talks about 2016. 
 
 
 
 After a week that included 32 posts, 83,000 shares on Facebook, 8,400 Twitter followers, over 45K Tumblr followers, news stories around the world, Renee Montagne from Morning Edition saying “ROFL,” a Maureen Dowd column, and a tweet from ?uest Love, we think it’s time to stop while we are ahead. 
 
 As far as memes go – it has gone as far as it can go. Is it really possible to top a submission from the Secretary herself? No. But then when you get to text with her in real life – it’s just over. At least for us. But we have no doubt it will live on with all of you on the Internet. 
 
 The site will stay up but we won’t be posting anything new here. You can follow us on Twitter (@ASmith83, @Sllambe) and Tumblr (Stacy at ImWithKanye and Adam’s work account, Public Campaign Action Fund). 
 
 
 
 Thanks for all the LOLz. We truly appreciate all the support. 
 
 It turns out that memes really do come true. 
 
 
 
 -Stacy and Adam ||||| So it's week two and we're still talking about Texts From Hillary, the simple-yet-brilliant meme started by D.C.-based communications professionals Stacy Lambe and Adam Smith. 
 
 Here's why it works: Most memes make fun of their subjects. This one is all about respect. As Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal said yesterday, Hillary Clinton is "one of the few people who is in the Obama administration whose reputation from her work there has been enhanced as opposed to roughened." Where Obama, Biden, Gates, Geithner et al have suffered gray hairs and waning enthusiasm, Clinton — who entered the administration as Obama's graying runner-up — has undergone a reinvention and seems more powerful and unflappable than ever. 
 
 Two takes from today: 
 
 Benjy Sarlin, Talking Points Memo: 
 
 Her 2008 campaign, which once seemed a cautionary tale about hubris, looks at least somewhat better with age. Obama touted a unifying national message in his run against Clinton, suggesting that Clinton’s scars from decades of battling Republicans would make it difficult to ever be effective in the White House. Now Obama’s post-partisan vision has given way to a tough dogfight of a general election in which he’s running against the intransigent Republican party’s “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” And Clinton’s popularity — including with Republicans — has never been higher, prompting yet another boomlet of interest in a 2016 presidential run. 
 
 Marin Cogan, GQ's Death Race 2012: ||||| What a difference four years makes: When she was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton was parodied as drab and calculated, especially compared with young and vigorous Barack Obama and winking and fresh-faced Sarah Palin. Now, she’s fueling Internet jokes based on her own brand of badass cool. 
 
 More than just an image rebound, Clinton is enjoying a genuine resurgence. 
 
 Her 2008 campaign, which once seemed a cautionary tale about hubris, looks at least somewhat better with age. Obama touted a unifying national message in his run against Clinton, suggesting that Clinton’s scars from decades of battling Republicans would make it difficult to ever be effective in the White House. 
 
 Now Obama’s post-partisan vision has given way to a tough dogfight of a general election in which he’s running against the intransigent Republican party’s “thinly veiled social Darwinism.” And Clinton’s popularity — including with Republicans — has never been higher, prompting yet another boomlet of interest in a 2016 presidential run. 
 
 Part of this is the nature of her position. The secretary of State has traditionally been an apolitical figure and, consequently, those who have held the position have often enjoyed higher approval ratings than their boss. Clinton has held fast to this tradition and avoided injecting herself into the day’s hot-button issues. There are some occasional exceptions — last month she told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that she was glad to see Rush Limbaugh’s screed against law student Sandra Fluke draw widespread condemnation. 
 
 Still, given how well established — and polarizing — a political figure Clinton was considered prior to her appointment compared to many of her predecessors, the scale of her popularity is impressive. A recent Gallup poll showed her favorability rating reach new heights at 66 percent, including 40 percent of Republicans who view her positively, an astronomical figure for a prominent Democrat these days. From the public’s perspective, it’s clear that she’s settled easily into a behind-the-scenes role as a loyal and competent secretary of State. 
 
 Her lower visibility seems to have created some pent-up demand from her fans, though. This week a website “Texts From Hillary” created by two supporters, Stacy Lambe and Adam Smith, exploded on the Internet, generating tens of thousands of links on Facebook and Tumblr in its first 24 hours. The site features several two-panel gags that show Clinton on her Blackberry, clad in shades on a military jet, purportedly texting with various political and pop culture figures, from Condoleezza Rice to Ryan Gosling. 
 
 Clinton’s cold, relentless style was considered one of her biggest vulnerabilities, forming the basis for parodies of her on “Saturday Night Live” and attracting a number of sexist jabs from pundits. By the end of her campaign, however, she had drawn considerable respect even from many critics for her toughness and resolve during a long and difficult primary. Lambe told TPM he was hoping to capture this trait in his site. 
 
 “That photo just captures how people tried to make her out to be a bitch when she’s actually the head bitch in charge,” Lambe said. “Ever since she was appointed secretary of State there’s been a renewed appreciation for Hillary.” 
 
 As for the idea for the initial two-panel gag, “the alcohol helped,” said Smith. 
 
 It’s no accident that the notion of Clinton as the peak of steady competence has proven so resonant. Phil Singer, a spokesman for her 2008 presidential campaign, told TPM Clinton’s recent success follows a consistent trend in which she is best regarded when working on policy instead of politics. Before her 2008 run, for example, Clinton was an extremely popular senator both in New York and among her colleagues. 
 
 “When people see her doing her job and not getting involved with the back-and-forth, they’re happy,” Singer said, acknowledging that it was “ironic” given her highly political roles as First Lady, a tough Senate candidate in 2000 and an even tougher presidential candidate in 2008. 
 
 The fact that she’s kept her hands clean during an incredibly tense three-year standoff between the White House and national Republicans may also artificially boost her standing as voters imagine what could have been if she had won the nomination. 
 
 “Some people’s views on her may be reflective of the fact people had higher hopes for Obama,” Republican strategist Liz Mair said, “and its sort of evened out so she looks better by comparison.” 
 
 Not surprisingly, the 2016 speculation that began even before the 2008 election ended is worming its way back into the press in a major way. Plenty of Democrats are hoping she’ll run again, with Nancy Pelosi declaring just last week that she should consider waging another bid. 
 
 Clinton has mostly avoided the topic, though she’s hinted that her political days may be behind her at this point. She would be 69 on inauguration day, 2017. 
 
 “I believe that she’s being absolutely honest with you when she says she doesn’t think she’ll go back into politics,” Bill Clinton told ABC News recently. “But if she comes home and we do this foundation stuff for the rest of our lives, I’ll be happy; if she changes her mind and decides to run, I’ll be happy.” 
 
 Were Clinton to run she would almost certainly shed a significant amount of her current popularity with the right as soon as she seized a partisan mantle again. But her impressive tenure as secretary of State in a difficult transition period from the tumultuous Bush era would only boost her core appeal as the party’s most battle-tested heavyweight. One need only look to the equivalent time period in the 2004 presidential cycle to underscore how unpredictable things are in politics — Barack Obama was a virtually unknown state senator then, and George Allen was widely considered the man to beat on the Republican side. 
 
 Benjy Sarlin Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
– The latest meme to take the Internet by storm also might just indicate a Clinton renaissance: Texts From Hillary features imagined conversations between Clinton and pretty much anyone—other politicians, Sarah Palin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jay-Z—using a photo of Clinton taken last fall on a flight to Tripoli, in which she looks particularly badass in sunglasses while, apparently, texting. Sample line, from Clinton to John Boehner: "Baby in the room next to me at the hotel wouldn't stop crying last night. Thought of you. LMAO." Interestingly, when the now-iconic photo first appeared, a Reuters blogger noted that it was unflattering to Clinton, reports the Boston Globe, making her look tired and overworked. But when Adam Smith saw it recently, he thought she looked "fierce," shared the photo with a friend, and started the Tumblr account. Now, people are sending in their own suggestions for imaginary conversations, all of them featuring a take-charge Clinton. A few reactions from around the WWW: "More than just an image rebound, Clinton is enjoying a genuine resurgence," writes Benjy Sarlin on Talking Points Memo. Four years ago, her "cold, relentless style was considered one of her biggest vulnerabilities," but now people respect it. In fact, this meme "is all about respect," notes Dylan Byers on Politico. "Where Obama, Biden, Gates, Geithner, et al have suffered gray hairs and waning enthusiasm, Clinton … has undergone a reinvention and seems more powerful and unflappable than ever." "Gone are the man’s-world accessories, the pantsuit and masculine haircut," notes Joanna Weiss in the Globe. "Secretary Clinton is a woman, comfortably feminine, with long blonde hair, a chunky necklace, a giant brooch." The popularity of the meme proves that Hillary could be a contender in 2016, adds Marin Cogan in GQ. Check out the Tumblr in full here.