ל Lee Harris on the Usefulness of the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary for Testing Character. Via James Taranto, I found some very well written commentary by Lee Harris.

How long does it take you to know whether a man will panic in a crisis? Well, the answer is simple -- just as long as it takes for you to catch him in a crisis; and often that can be a long time. And the same is true of many other well-known long term virtues, such as loyalty and fidelity. How can you really tell how loyal a person is, if this loyalty has never been severely tested? And how long must we wait before such a test arises?

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We should keep this in mind whenever we reflect on the seemingly irrational method by which we as a people select the man to fill the most important office in the world. For the real purpose behind the superficially bizarre rituals of an American election -- caucuses, primaries, televised debates, concession speeches -- is not to provide an exercise in democracy; it is to test the inner resources and character of the candidates, and to do this by exposing them to a grueling series of artificially induced crises that simulate those that he will ultimately have to face as president. The American electoral process is, in a way, like the simulated testing done by the manufacturers of automobile tires -- we want to know which ones are reliable before we put them on our cars, rather than afterwards, and that is why the American people tend to respond so harshly to those candidates who fail to make the grade during this our national period of candidate testing.

Iowa was Dean's first crisis--and he blew it; and in doing so he lost far more than the Iowa caucus: he lost the reputation as a man who could be trusted to act calmly and rationally in the midst of adversity. And that is a lesson that the American people will not quickly forget. We do not live in a world where we can afford to.