Before any votes, a 'money primary'

But Richardson is another candidate who could face viability problems soon if he does not show some chops in the fundraising department. As the sitting governor of a state far from the key money centers, Los Angeles and New York, it will be hard for him to raise the kind of serious money he needs. Still, he's already well ahead of where Vilsack was when he pulled out. Last week, Richardson raised $2 million in a single fundraiser. Vilsack had raised just $1.1 million in the last seven weeks of 2006, and had spent most of it by the end of the year.

In this presidential cycle, money is more important than ever – especially since some top candidates have signaled they will forgo the public financing system and raise as much as they can on their own. Campaign-finance experts say that, to remain viable, a candidate needs to raise upwards of $20 million by June. Some top-tier candidates, like Clinton, can expect to do far better than that.

The Richardson and Obama candidacies have opened up mini invisible primaries within the larger one, one in the Hispanic community and the other among African-Americans. The challenge for both men is to compete against the Clinton machine, which has strong connections to both communities owing to the presidency of Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton, and his continuing popularity among both groups. (Richardson is Hispanic and Obama is black.)

The campaign of Hillary Clinton, which has worked all along to create an air of inevitability around her candidacy, has reached out to key players in both worlds and locked in talent and donors. For both Richardson and Obama, the ethnic/racial dimension has presented a challenge: Neither says he is running as the "Hispanic candidate" or the "African-American candidate," but those are natural ties that can produce important endorsements and donations.

And even as the overall Democratic field has shrunk, it may not be done growing either. Speculation persists that former Vice President Al Gore may yet jump into the race – one of the few people who could still do that and mount a viable candidacy, given his national fame and fundraising ability.

In a Pew Research Center poll released last Friday, most Democratic voters (77 percent) reported that they have not given the presidential campaign much thought and were not prepared to state which candidate they would support. Among those who were willing to name a candidate, Clinton came in first with 11 percent, Obama got 7 percent, Edwards got 1 percent, Gore got 1 percent, and 4 percent went to others.

Given that the invisible primary is taking place largely unnoticed by most Americans may strike some as undemocratic. In effect, the choices that voters will face early next year in the nominating contests are being shaped right now, before most people are paying attention. But the system has run this way for a long time. It was the influential GOP donors and governors who hand-picked then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush to run for president back in 1999. Ronald Reagan was tapped to run for president in similar fashion.

Still, the early importance of big money in the 2008 presidential cycle is unprecedented. "This may well be a very important year in that process, in the sense of more and more money being required to run," says Mr. Jillson.

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