PARTISAN MIRRORING AND DIFFICULT CHOICES: Not all is looking rosy for Democrats ahead of what could be a wave election this fall.

There is nothing new about “left and lefter” tensions within the Democratic Party ranks, but they have become more complex due to broader changes in the political ecosystem. In the immediate post-WW II era, the professional operatives uniformly preferred winning over ideology while the grassroots amateurs favored principles over electoral expediency. The difference between the professionals and the amateurs has lessened. The battle over the DNC Chair revealed that even the official party ranks are ideologically divided.

Also, with the proliferation of public polls and social media forums, the professionals no longer have a distinct advantage over the grassroots in information and data. The districts in serious play are common knowledge thanks to sites like Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and other online resources. As a consequence, there are more amateurs at the district level and in the political nonprofit world playing the targeting and mobilizing game at a sophisticated level. Meanwhile many professionals from the TV ad era struggle like amateurs as social media, interactive software, and big data have transformed what consultants do. It is simply not clear who knows best in the party, even when everyone agrees that winning is paramount in the Trump era.

Nobody knows anything.