Once upon a time, on the eve of the 1988 presidential primary season, Des Moines newspaper columnist Donald Kaul shared a blasphemous opinion with his local readers. The first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucus was “a nice little oddball political event with considerable charm and some utility. That it should occupy a major role in our political process, however, is kind of a joke.”

He got that right.

In case you’re wondering, the reason Iowa got big in the first place is because Jimmy Carter made it happen. As a former one-term governor who few people outside of Georgia had ever heard of, Carter decided during the run-up to the 1976 primaries that he needed to make a quick splash at the earliest possible time, to show that a deep-southerner could win something up north. The Iowa caucus, which few people outside of Iowa had ever heard of, was sitting there at the start of the calendar, and was generally overlooked. So Carter ambushed his rivals by making it a priority. He wound up finishing second – the top choice was “Uncommitted” – but the media perception (in politics, perception is akin to reality) was that he was a winner with momentum.

And so a tradition was born. But as for me – someone who trekked to Iowa in four election cycles – I’ve never fathomed why such an overhyped and unrepresentative contest should be first on the calendar. First in pork, first in corn, first in the presidential sweepstakes – spare me. It’s nice that nice people can get ginned up about politics to stand around gyms and meeting rooms for hours on end, but citizens who work nights can’t go, nor can many seniors or folks with disabilities or young parents who can’t get sitters.

Amidst all the chaos last night – Democrats suffered brainlock while trying to report the caucus results, a disaster which will hopefully kill off the caucus forever – there was actually one noteworthy announcement: The state Democratic party said it appears that the ’20 turnout was on a par with the turnout in 2016. Which means that, for all the talk of an electorate energized by the mission to beat Trump, the turnout was actually tepid. In 2016, only 171,000 Iowans participated in the Democratic caucus – only 27 percent of all registered Democrats statewide.

You see where I’m going with this. Why should a caucus that draws only 1 in 4 Democrats be given such prominent placement? And last night, according to a CNN “entrance poll,” 92 percent of the Democrats who showed up were white. Whereas, nationally, only 61 percent of Democrats are white. A racially diverse party – a party that mirrors America – should have a voting calendar that gives minorities a chance to participate right out of the gate.

And the Democrats who typically show tend to be more ideologically left-leaning than the mainstream. CNN’s entrance poll reported last night that 57 percent of caucus-goers support Medicare For All, a government health plan (championed by Bernie Sanders) that would take away the private health coverage that 155 million Americans get from their employers. Nationally, support for such a radical overhaul of health care tops out at roughly 40 percent.

So it’s actually a good thing that the Iowa Democrats’ new voting system has melted down. I won’t bother to explain the process – it’s a Rube Goldberg machine combined with the rules for whack-ball in the film Fantastic Mr. Fox – or try to understand why their nifty new reporting app crashed on liftoff. The results (raw vote totals in round one, plus re-aligned vote totals in round two, plus “delegate equivalents” that measure delegate strength – you see? I tried) will seem tainted, and the candidates, who dropped $68 million in Iowa advertising, will spin them to the point of meaningless.

(Update, 6 p.m.: Iowa Democrats have finally released some figures, albeit only 62 percent of the total. The clearest subplot is that Joe Biden did very badly – finishing fourth in the hunt for votes and delegates. And that dovetails with a stunning stat from the entrance poll: Among the caucus-goers who prioritized electability, who said that beating Trump was most important, Biden didn’t even win there. He trailed the electability winner: Pete Buttigieg. These results do not bode well for Biden.)

All told, Iowa’s smoke-and-mirrors mystique is gone. If the caucus is no longer perceived as important it will hopefully cease to be so.