If you’re interested, I’m live-blogging the results of the Iowa caucuses over at my place.

Is it a great day for democracy? Well, that’s the intention. Old-school democracy. Hardly the way it’s done anymore. Caucuses (particularly in Iowa), unlike primaries, represent a sort of idyllic (if mostly obsolete) Jeffersonianism, the people actually coming out, talking politics, and making their choices. Unlike the atomized process of voting in a booth, in privacy, this is about community, about political engagement as something other than, more than, the mere casting of a ballot.

And by “the people,” of course, I mean a tiny fraction of an otherwise alienated and disengaged electorate, the hardcore of the hardcore, extremists of partisanship, ideology, and political temperament. In this case, a tiny fraction of the electorate in a small state that, all due respect, isn’t exactly representative of America — and, in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t make much of a difference. So why should it be so important? Why should it be the focus of our political obsession?