Who would you have voted for in 2004 Democratic Primaries

[RaphaelDLG]

Tier 1:
Dean - one of the frontrunners so makes sense strategically, awesome candidate on policy.  It's super, duper sad that he's now a lobbyist fighting universal health care.

Tier 2:
Clark - was one of the least corrupted candidates at least.  Has a cool son.
Kucinich - he's basically a Jill Stein-esque protest vote for someone who is right on policy but too crazy to be a competent President

Tier 3:
Kerry - meh.  Done well as secretary of state, was an acceptable mainstream liberal democrat with no charisma.

Tier 4:
Edwards - After he got brainwashed into being far left on economics by Elizabeth in 08 he was a WAY better candidate, ghoulish infidelity aside.  Here he was just aping Bill Clinton
Gephardt - sucks!
Sharpton - okay on some policy but c'mon, he's Al Sharpton.  I probably would have been a Jackson voter in the 80s but not a Sharpton voter in the 00s

Tier DIAF:
Lieberman - neocon asswipe in the pocket of insurance and finance companies (obvious)

[RaphaelDLG]

Dean > Kucinich > Edwards > Kerry > Clark > Gephardt > Sharpton >>>> ... >>>> Lieberman

(if I'd known about Edwards' scandal  I would have placed him after Gephardt)

Dean

Really? Anti-establishment in 2004 but not 08 or 16?

Despite having a much longer Senate career than Obama, Bernie is just as naive unfortunately. He really thinks a bunch of kids from Reddit spamming Mitch McConnell/Paul Ryan's emails/phones will get them to pass his socialist programs. That's not how it works, because as I said, they couldn't care less about public opinion or the welfare of the country. He talks about a political revolution, but has put very little effort into supporting candidates for Congress, which would be absolutely essential to even get slices of his agenda through. Despite all this, I do agree with him that the Democratic Party needs to move away from centrism and take a more left-wing approach. But I'd argue that Hillary can actually get more progressive goals accomplished than he could, since she knows how to work the system. Give me the tough as nails tenacious sketchy bitch that knows the true colors of the Republicans and the ugliness of sausage making over the naive inspirational black guy or the somewhat delusional socialist, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

1) I'm a big fan of yours
2) I would love to see a Democratic House and Senate and Hillary as President assuming Bernie loses
3) Bernie sucks in many of the ways that you have identified

BUT...

A Democratic Congress, though better than a Republican one, will still be in the pocket of lobbying firms who will pour money into Democratic coffers and will literally allow lobbyists to continue to write bills and water down progressive legislation into diet coke progressive legislation and remain inelastic (re Martin Gilens' research) to the wishes of average voters.  The "political revolution" is a vague, fuzzy dream but it's a badly, badly needed one.  TBH i'm not as left wing as Bernie and am probably closer to Hillary in many respects but his focus on campaign finance is the major reason I support him, because it's the plutonium rod that poisons the entire well.