It’s possible that all this jockeying that may move the Iowa caucuses into December will have the effect of killing off the importance of Iowa.

Think about it: A week before Christmas, or a week after, how many Iowans are going to be able to participate in the events in question? They’ll be traveling away from home, or hosting relatives, or having family and church events, caroling parties, and the like. The notion of moving the caucuses into December is all but lunatic. Nobody in America, even in Iowa, is ready to give a week’s attention to the caucuses with Christmas and New Year’s so close. That includes caucus organizers and the army of volunteers who do the work necessary to wrangle people to the caucus rooms to”stand up” for their preferred candidate.

I’ve never seen an authoritative count of the people who actually participate in the Iowa caucuses (the number floats somewhere around 50,000). It will be clear to the reporters who have been covering these things for years if attendance is sparse. They will be hard-pressed to make as big a deal out of the Iowa results if they have to report nobody showed up.