Michael Allen

Allen grew up in Orange County, California. His father was conservative writer Gary Allen, a spokesman for the John Birch Society. He described his household as normal and "apolitical", in considerable contrast to his father's flamboyant public persona as a conservative icon, who once denounced rock music as a "Pavlovian Communist mind-control plot" and wrote speeches for George Wallace. Allen is an Eagle Scout.

Allen moved east to attend Washington and Lee University, graduating in 1986 with a double major in politics and journalism. His father died the same year, and Allen was quoted in the New York Times obituary giving details on his father's career.

Allen's first reporting job was with the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. He also worked at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The New York Times and Time.

At Politico, a Washington-based print and online publication launched by Allbritton Communications, Allen wrote the daily "Playbook." In April 2010, The New York Times estimated that Playbook brings in $780,000 for Politico.

Allen was featured in a piece for the April 25, 2010, edition of The New York Times Magazine titled, "The Man the White House Wakes Up To." He is considered by many to be one of the most powerful and influential journalists in Washington.

A somewhat reclusive figure, Allen was profiled by Mark Leibovich, who reported that many of his friends did not know where he lived, and that none of them had ever been inside his apartment. A colleague who knew him in earlier life described him as living among "mounds of newspapers and a couple pieces of junky furniture."