Picklist behavior is strange and not working.

Picklist behavior is strange and not working.

I pass a value of a Deal to a form to be looked up and then populate the lookup using the following code.

1. if (input.cmd  !=  "")
2. {
3.     //input.cmd is the deal ID passed.
4.     theDeal  =  Deals  [ID == input.cmd.toLong()];
5.     input.Deal = theDeal.Deal_Name;
6. }

This is not working anymore. (I haven't touched this code in a year!)
Also, why do these two drop down look different?