Pros
The firm truly works for great causes and candidates if you're interested in progressive politics. Despite organizational and cultural issues, the individual employees are dedicated to these causes and are wonderful coworkers. Celinda Lake herself is incredibly dedicated to her work. It's a great opportunity to learn about polling, focus groups, and political strategy early in your career if you can afford it. These skills can be helpful in a variety of fields outside of polling and within, including communications, public affairs, and market research. Great camaraderie among the DC office.
Cons
Management is organizationally, a mess, starting at the top with the president. The president wants to be involved in the minutia of every single project and doesn't trust her staff to execute tasks. It comes from a place of great caring about the company and the clients, but it causes projects to run past deadlines and over budgets constantly. This attitude is true for all of the management level/senior staff. Very few members of the staff manage a balance between work and personal life. Pay is below industry standards even at comparably sized and even smaller political firms.