The manner by which the two major U.S. political parties nominate their candidates for president dominates popular political discourse every fourth winter and spring. For students of American politics, however, virtually all of the seasons in between are filled with discussions of this most partisan activity. No less a scholar than Boss Tweed observed, “I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating.”

Since the birth of our modern nominating system in the aftermath of the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention, political scientists have written countless books and articles seeking to recount the history of nomination politics, explain the outcomes of nomination battles, or propose reforms to the current system. Reforming the Presidential Nomination Process is an edited volume that attempts to do all three through the lens of the hard-fought, bitterly contested 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential nomination contests. Despite some unevenness among the selections, a reluctance in places to engage new scholarship in the area, and the danger of drawing broad conclusions from one election cycle, the work succeeds in providing a worthwhile overview of presidential nomination politics.

Ever since the McGovern-Fraser Commission radically altered the way presidents are nominated, debate has centered on the entities that have the most control over the outcome of the process. Prior to McGovern-Fraser, nobody could seriously doubt that party elites held the ultimate power to decide who would represent their side in the general election. Elites would attempt to come to a compromise on the candidate who best represented the core ideals of the party and who was most likely to achieve victory in November. In the aftermath of McGovern-Fraser, a debate raged as to how much power had been taken away from the party elites and what entities might have stepped into that vacuum. In the first few postreform contests, scholars noted the increased role played by the voters, the media, and the candidates themselves. They argued that the new system became more wide open, and that it became easier for “outsiders” to gain their party's nomination. Nelson Polsby decried this outcome, claiming that a candidate no longer needed to unite disparate elements within a party and only needed to rely on a particular faction to storm to the nomination. He believed that the consequences of this new system were detrimental to the American system of government, producing candidates who had no experience building the coalitions necessary to govern effectively once in office. Larry Bartels subsequently focused his keen eye on the dynamics of the process, concluding that media-driven momentum derived from early victories at the polls was essential for waging a successful nomination campaign. However, more recent research has noticed a “return to normalcy” and has concluded that party elites, despite not having the ultimate say over who is their nominee, have regained sufficient control of the process to at least keep broadly unacceptable candidates from succeeding.

The work under review here, for the most part, fits nicely into the literature on presidential nominations while focusing on how the system might be improved in the aftermath of the most recent nomination campaigns. Some chapters in the book summarize the events of 2008 on both the Democratic and Republican sides, some analyze the results of the two contests, and others propose potential reforms to the general process. The most effective selections seek to combine all three goals with an effort to place 2008 in a broader context by treating it as merely one of several postreform nominating seasons.

Chapter 1 by the book's editors, Steven S. Smith and Melanie J. Springer, gives a brief history of the nominating process and concludes that because there is no strong consensus about the key values to be reflected in it, national parties should take the lead in reform. Chapter 2, by Gerald C. Wright, evaluates the seeming unrepresentativeness of early primary and caucus states. In this context, he assesses the effect of the way in which the contests are ordered. This turns out to be a particularly relevant aspect of the process since many of the reform proposals discussed later in the book focus on sequencing. Chapter 3, by Thomas E. Patterson, examines the record turnout levels in 2008 but cautions that this spike in voter participation will likely not be repeated in upcoming cycles. Chapter 4, written by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Bruce W. Hardy, looks at the role of the media in making voters aware of candidate endorsements.

The recently publicized superdelegates are given full attention by William Mayer in Chapter 5. For those who worry that superdelegates introduce an antidemocratic element to the process, Mayer argues that only in 1984 did they have an impact, and not a decisive one at that. In the next chapter, Springer and James L. Gibson seek to get a handle on public opinion regarding the nomination process. They find that most people are happy with the status quo, but if reform were to be enacted, a majority would like a more inclusive system. Chapter 7 is a pitch for Larry Sabato's Regional Lottery Plan. In Chapter 8, Thomas E. Mann puts 2008 and the subsequent calls for reform into perspective. He argues that the litany of complaints about 2008 are nothing new, and in fact the system did a pretty good job on both the Democratic and Republican sides. Finally, in Chapter 9, Daniel Lowenstein addresses the legal constraints that might hinder reform efforts. He concludes that Congress most likely would attempt to address the timing of the process, and would be within its constitutional right if it did so.

The main theoretical debate surrounding the nominating campaigns in recent years has revolved around the relative degree to which the party elites still control the process, despite reforms designed to limit their influence. Related to that, of course, is the normative debate about how much party control is desirable. When this book addresses these two complementary questions, it is at its best. Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 are therefore, in my opinion, the strongest pieces in the volume. While I do not always agree with the conclusions drawn in these selections, they are taking on the important debates within the discipline.

Jamieson and Hardy's focus on the potential impact of endorsements touches upon one of the central mechanisms available to party elites to impact the process before the voters even reach the caucus sites and polling booths. Mayer, while minimizing the role of the superdelegates, acknowledges the effort of party insiders to reassert levels of “peer review” that may produce more broadly acceptable candidates. Springer and Gibson's survey of the American public on the presidential nominating process astutely focuses on the levels of inclusiveness desired by ordinary voters. Ultimately, the question that comes out of that focus concerns who exactly has the right to decide how parties nominate their candidates. And finally, Mann neatly places 2008 and various reform proposals called for in its wake in the context of past nominating seasons and past discussions of reform. He summarizes the crucial debates within the discipline and the prospects for the types of reforms discussed throughout the text. In one of the most cogent and succinct passages of the entire volume, Mann argues, “In spite of efforts to nationalize and democratize the process, it remains highly decentralized and resistant to those seeking uniformity. At the same time, our presidential nominating system is open and adaptable … [Its] formal shortcomings can be overcome by informal processes, including the invisible primary, during which party elites work to put their own imprint on the choice of a nominee” (p. 168). Mann and his fellow scholars give students of this important process much to consider in the years leading up to the next installment of the Iowa caucuses.