Elections are akin to horse races. Like a bettor with a large bankroll, a political party has a vested interest in backing the right horse. And while political consultants are thick on the ground in Washington, and while the sophistication of their tools — polls, demographic analyses, social media operations — trumps that of touts at the track, one has to wonder what happened this year in Maine, where the Democrats chose to back an odd horse.

My firm conducts background investigations, so I know first-hand that everybody wants to back a winner. While there are no guarantees in horse racing — a thoroughbred may pull up lame in the far turn — handicappers try to maximize their odds by maximizing their knowledge of each horse. Their sources of data and methods of analysis may vary, but serious parimutuel bettors always conduct due diligence. Why don’t political parties?