“The amateur asserts that principles, rather than interest, ought to be both the end and the motive of political action,” Wilson writes. Far from taking a detached attitude, the amateur “sees each battle as a ‘crisis,’ and each victory as a triumph and each loss as a defeat for a cause.”10 The choice of candidates and leaders, for the amateur, should be based on their commitment to principles and policies rather than on personal loyalty or party label or parochial advantage. Parties, rather than being “neutral agents” to mobilize majorities and gain power, should be “the sources of program and the agents of social change.”