Mike Allen's Birthday Cake

Politico Playbook Editor Turns 45

Politico’s Mike Allen celebrated his birthday on Wednesday. The h/t goes to the 150+ people who turned out on a cold and damp evening for a man who is what Harry Truman called a rare Washington commodity: a friend.

The cake (candles lit by Austan Goolsbee) — and lapel pins — carried an image knocked off from another president, fitting for the editor of Politico’s Playbook.

Mike Allen Birthday Speech from whcinsider on Vimeo.

(Surprise) Birthday Invite

Hosts John Harris and Ann O’Hanlon, Jim and Autumn VandeHei, Mike Feldman, Betsy Fischer, Jonathan Karl, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Hilary Rosen, Jonathan Martin, and Tammy Haddad kept the birthday boy in the dark about the true reason for the party with an invite highlighting 160 days of media coverage.

Check out all the photos from Mike Allen’s birthday party:

Did too much birthday celebration interfere with Allen’s “Morning Joe” appearance the next day? No one’s telling.

Washington’s media elite were applauding the hardest working man in political news including Obama favs Sarah Feinberg, Steve Rattner, Bill Burton and Laura Capps, Stephanie Cutter, Fred Hochberg, Campbell Spencer and Dr. Jill Biden’s Comm Director Courtney Diesel, as well as Norah O’Donnell and the ever-charming Geoff Morrell.

Mike Allen’s pals, led by media super couple Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, Politico owner Robert and Barbara Allbritton (who got a round of applause), Bob Barnett and Rita Braver, Debbie Dingell, Todd Purdum and Dee Dee Myers, Margaret Carlson, Savannah Guthrie, Ann Compton, Lois Romano, Maralee Schwartz, Juleanna Glover Weiss and Sam Feist.

Two showstoppers from the Clinton world caused a ripple when they walked in (separately) Jake Siewert, now a top adviser to Tim Geithner, and California import Jay Carson.

Mike always draws a crowd from both parties; GOP pals included Bob Stevenson, John Feehery, Ron Bonjean, Rob Collins, Michael Allen and Taylor Griffin.

Politico’s finest were everywhere with Kim Kingsley, Politico’s first lady leading the charge, along with Washington’s most fun man on campus Marc Adelman and the divine Natalie Ravitz.

Jennifer Loven with President George Bush at the 2008 WHCD.

The White House Correspondents Association “represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the administration on coverage-related issues,” the WHCA Web site says. Spearheading that duty is the WHCA president — currently Jennifer Loven, who covers 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for the Associated Press.

What does the duty involve? “As president of the association, you’re the go-to person between the White House and the reporters,” past-president Steve Scully of C-Span tells WHCInsider. (Loven declined to talk.)

“You mediate on issues like travel, or seating, on just about everything,” Scully continues. “And you really have to ride herd on the White House to get answers on anything that might come up.”

If anyone can get answers, it’s likely Loven. As NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd recently told WHCInsider, “Jennifer Loven decides when the briefings begin and end. [White House press secretary] Robert Gibbs knows. When it appears the pertinent questions of the day have been asked and everybody has gotten a shot, she closes it down.”

In Hollywood parlance, Loven has juice.

“She is not just president of the association,” Todd said, “she is also chief AP reporter. She and her AP colleagues are probably the most influential reporters out there. She can probably change the mind of a New York Times editor faster than their own reporter.”

Still, there are pressures to handle, such as the first time a POTUS attends a White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

“This is a critical year, because there’s a brand new president, you assume that he will come in the spirit of the evening and give great uplifting remarks,” former WHCA president Ann Compton tells WHCInsider. “The hardest thing that Jennifer had to do was hire entertainment for the evening, and despite the recession, the tables are absolutely sold out. In fact, somebody asked me if I could get tickets and I said ‘Maybe in Rockville.’”

As it is in most news organizations, the White House beat is “a very high-prestige post within the AP,” a former longtime AP staffer tells WHCInsider. “Very often the White House correspondent stays administration after administration while the new kids who rode the victor’s campaign bus get added to the White House staff as a reward and to take advantage of their contacts.”