Washington Insider: Journalist Jonathan Allen, BA ’98

As a White House reporter for Bloomberg and the former White House bureau chief for Politico, Jonathan Allen, BA (GVPT) ’98, knows Washington inside and out. Allen—who is poised to cover the 2016 presidential campaign—recently published HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton with coauthor Amie Parnes. The book has quickly become required reading inside and outside the Beltway.

While Allen has covered countless political topics—and personalities—on the Washington beat, he finds Clinton’s story and persona to be particularly compelling.

“My coauthor and I thought Hillary’s political comeback from the ashes of the 2008 campaign to front-runner status for the 2016 Democratic nomination was fascinating. We wanted to tell the story of that resurgence and also give folks a window into how Hillary makes decisions and who she surrounds herself with in the event that she does run for the nation's highest office again,” Allen said. “We thought there was a lot of uncharted territory in reporting on the political angles of her tenure at State, particularly how she worked within the administration, with Congress, with foreign leaders, and with her own husband to advance her goals, those of her department, and those of the president.”

Allen’s interest in Washington—and how to take its pulse—emerged during his time at UMD in the Department of Government and Politics. Lessons learned in the classroom and as a student journalist shaped Allen’s approach to research and writing.

“I took an entry-level class with Joe Oppenheimer that focused on game theory. While I firmly believe that actual human behavior is often at odds with optimal decision-making, I found myself applying lessons learned in that class to the way I looked at political leaders' choices. I was probably always headed toward journalism, and I enjoyed working on the Diamondback, but I don't know that I would have ended up covering politics if it were not for that class. I do know that I would be a much less thoughtful analyst without it,” Allen said.

Whether current UMD students aspire to be a journalist or a politician, Allen’s advice on how to succeed is simple: “Outwork the competition.”

Allen has been doing just that throughout his career, and he has a deep body of work and a New York Times bestselling book to show for it. Allen and Parnes interviewed cabinet and State Department officials, White House aides, members of Congress in both parties, foreign policy experts, and aides from numerous campaigns. While the authors knew going into the project that it would require countless hours of research and hundreds of interviews, Allen said the process itself was eye-opening—and at times frustrating, as numerous sources wished to remain anonymous.

“Madeleine Albright was one of my favorite interview subjects because she was very straightforward and had tremendous insight into both the role of secretary of State and Hillary Clinton, with whom she had been close for two decades,” Allen said.

The toughest part to research dealt with policy in the national security realm. It's hard to get people with high-level clearance to talk about even things that aren't classified. I'm probably most proud of our reporting on Pakistan and how U.S. officials laid the groundwork for getting bin Laden, using soft tools of diplomacy and foreign aid to create the space necessary to keep up intelligence and military activities. It's one of my favorite chapters and one that required a lot of research and reporting.”

While Allen knows Washington politics inside and out, he and his coauthor found a good deal of surprising material and stories along the way.

“The biggest surprise was that Barack Obama asked Hillary Clinton to stay on as secretary of State after the 2012 election. More broadly, we were surprised at what one source called Clinton's ‘bias for action.’ We expected to find someone who was more risk-averse but reported on a number of episodes where she took big chances, including urging the president to intervene in Libya and launch the raid on Osama bin Laden—in both cases, she was at odds with Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Gates,” Allen said.

Even before HRC was published, Allen has been fielding the same question for years, in public and private circles—“Will she run?”

“She is running. She has been running for several years. Is it possible that she'll stop running? Sure. But I expect Hillary Clinton will be a candidate for the presidency in 2016. I can't say whether she will win. It's a long way off,” Allen said.

The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is pleased to welcome Jonathan Allen as the commencement speaker for the Department of Government and Politics ceremony at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 23 at the Cole Student Activities Building. Click here for more information on this and other BSOS ceremonies.

Published on Mon, Mar 10, 2014 - 4:23PM