The dust has settled since last Tuesday’s election, said Pamela Wu, KCRA news anchor/reporter, who moderated a panel of political experts on Thursday, Nov. 9 in the Alumni Center.

“The relationship between media and politics cannot be overstated,” Wu said. “Media coverage is the very lifeblood of politics because it shapes the perceptions that form the reality on which political action is based.”

Each of the seven experts present was given a chance to offer some analysis.

Bill Bradley, L.A. Weekly columnist and the man, who in 2002, predicted that Arnold Schwarzenegger would become governor, said that the governor’s race went pretty much as he had expected.

“When it was decided in the primaries that Phil Angelides won the nomination, there was the question of whether Gov. Schwarzenegger’s team could fend off Angelides’ attacks,” Bradley said. “Also there was a question of whether Schwarzenegger, an excellent yet slightly untraditional candidate, would have any problems along the way.”

Steve Maviglio, the deputy chief of staff for California Assembly Speaker Fabio Nunez, press secretary for former Gov. Gray Davis, and a professor at Sacramento State, first identified himself as a paid Democratic spinster.

“I think the message of this election was that people wanted to see things done,” Maviglio said. “They wanted to see partnerships, and they wanted bipartisanship. Any candidate who ran as a partisan in this election lost.”

Bob Waste, Sac State government professor and former chair of public policy and administration, spoke about the difference of parties in California and of the colors when referring to Democrats.

California is big enough to be two states – a red state and a blue state, Waste said.

“The blue one would start up in the people’s republic of Arcata and run all the way down to Los Angeles, because the six counties that Schwarzenegger lost either flow into the Pacific or border on the San Francisco bay area,” Waste said.

Also included in the panel were Patrick Dorinson, who used to work on high-profile Clinton administration commissions, Karen Hanretty, a former communications director for the California Republican Party, Sam Rodriguez, the communications director for the California Democratic Party and Ned Wigglesworth, the policy advocate for California Common Cause.

Government major Rene Bayardo expressed his interest in listening to the political observers give their opinions.

“I think that the media’s role in politics is really important because we don’t really get any first-hand information, it all comes through the prism of the media. So understanding how they shape the campaigns through the coverage is important,” Bayardo said.