There’s an interesting story to in WaPo about Democrats who intend “to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters.” Harold Ickes and George Soros are involved. Yet there’s some controversy:

Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party. Ickes and others involved in the effort acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence that the DNC under Chairman Howard Dean is ready to compete with Republicans on the technological front.

This is not only a vote of no confidence, it is also a vote for competition–a concept that is apparently alien to the protectionists and unionists at the DNC. Here’s to hoping that Ickes and Soros will go on to apply their new insight on the virtues of private enterprise and competition to, say, public schooling.