National political reporter to offer post-election analysis

Now that voters have written an ending to the grueling presidential campaign, the nation’s political reporters will spend the next few weeks digesting the results and the lessons learned from the 2012 election.

Among them will be Dan Balz, chief political correspondent for the Washington Post. He will bring his post-election view to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in a lecture on Thursday, Nov. 29.

In the hours after President Obama’s victory, Balz said the president won re-election after running a “methodical, relentless campaign,” but now has to pivot and talk about building consensus, reaching across the aisle and working with Republicans.

“These are words the re-elected president is expected to talk about, but the challenge is great and it’s a lot more on his shoulders today than it was before,” Balz said in a Washington Post video.

Balz’s talk is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the H. F. DeLuca Forum of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, 330 N. Orchard St. His visit is part of the Ralph O. and Monona H. Nafziger Lecture Series and is sponsored by the UW–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“Dan Balz is among the best political reporters in America, if not the best,” says James L. Baughman, Fetzer-Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the UW. “We are grateful he can be this year’s Nafziger lecturer.”

Balz has worked for the Post since 1978, serving as national editor, political editor, White House correspondent and correspondent in the southwestern U.S.

Balz is also the author of a number of books, including “Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election,” which he wrote with Haynes Johnson.

The talk is free and open to the public.