As the amount of money raised by those who win the major parties' nominations for president has soared out of sight, scholars, the media, and even the general public have become seriously concerned. Michael Goff's book examines the “money primary,” fund-raising before a single primary or caucus vote has even been cast. He sees it, along with media attention and poll rankings, as crucial in determining the viability and eventual success of candidates. The interrelatons of these factors can be seen in his three main hypotheses. Strong fund-raising predicts survival and “success in the early nomination process” (p. 11). Extensive early fund-raising organization and activity increase the possibility of success. Media coverage of these activities forecasts candidate viability and success. In other words, money is important not only for what it can buy but as an early indicator of comparative candidate strength.

The Money Primary provides useful detail about an important subject, but it limits itself to a small part of that subject. Despite focusing on the connections between fund-raising and media coverage, Goff notes that cause and effect are “beyond the scope of this work” (p. 8). Nor does he investigate such important questions as who gives the money, what they might expect in return, or what types of candidates are encouraged and discouraged, a topic he looks at in a chapter summarizing the literature on nominations since the reforms of the 1970s. The book does include a brief afterword on possible reform that is highly critical of the direction the nomination process has taken, while advocating measures such as reducing front loading to make it more democratic.

The main portion of the book consists of case studies of the early phases of the 1988 and 2000 nomination contests, which were selected because the lack of an incumbent resulted in competitive races in both parties. Although this is certainly a reasonable choice, the different dynamic for both the in and out parties of a contest focusing on a president seeking reelection makes it difficult to generalize from the cases selected.

Because political scientists are only beginning to examine these early stages systematically, the book's main virtue is the detail it provides about preprimary fund-raising. Goff notes that the few works examining this subject consider only those official presidential campaign committees that report to the Federal Elections Commission. By examining leadership political action committees, tax exempt foundations, state-based committees (which proved particularly important to Texas Governor George W. Bush in 2000), and other fund-raising devices used before (often years before) the official declaration of candidacy, he adds to our understanding of how the “invisible primary” winnows out candidates. Presidential aspirants who fail to organize entities that raise significant sums of money before official declarations of candidacy are doomed to fail, often withdrawing even before the Iowa caucuses. Other indicators of success are cash on hand, fund-raising momentum, and the level of matching funds, although the 2004 campaign suggests that the last of these may have outlived its usefulness inasmuch as the main-contenders declined the match in order to evade spending limits. Goff notes that this early fund-raising is a necessary condition of viability but not a sufficient one, as demonstrated by the short-lived 2000 candidacies of Dan Quayle and John Ashcroft, each of whom received millions of dollars in contributions in 1998. Nevertheless, by 2000, these early stages prior to the first votes “may well have become the decisive phase in presidential nominee selection” (p. 117).

The chapter on media coverage of the money primary is limited by its method. Its findings are based entirely on a content analysis of three elite newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. At a time when an overwhelming majority of the public gets its news primarily from television, local media are increasing in importance, and growing numbers are turning to the Internet, one has to be hesitant about Goff's generalizations. Because television is such a visual medium, its coverage of campaign funding is likely to be quite different from that of elite newspapers. Without information about coverage of other aspects of the campaign, there is no context in which to place coverage of the money primary. Nor can a reader be too confident about trends based on findings from only two elections, 1988 and 2000. Despite this, Goff's findings that the volume of coverage of early campaign finance doubled from 1988 to 2000 and that this coverage “is increasingly concentrated on candidates with successful fund-raising” (p. 178) are worth further examination.

For the most part, however, the confirmation of his three main hypotheses will come as little news to students of presidential campaigns. For example, in The Presidential Nominating Process: A Place for Us? (2004), Rhodes Cook writes that compared to early polls, “campaign fund-raising totals at the end of the year preceding the presidential election have proved a more reliable harbinger of success.” Essentially, the book confirms the conventional wisdom that money, especially early money, has become more important than ever and fills in some details about how it is raised. Reaffirming these points does have the value of reminding us, as Goff concludes, that the promise of democratization through reforms in the presidential nomination process has been largely overturned by the “money primary,” which “has returned control of presidential selection to political elites in general and, perhaps worse, to financial elites in particular” (p. 185).