2008 Democratic primaries if neither Hillary nor Obama ran

[darklordoftech]

Who would have won the nomination with Hillary and Obama both out of the picture?

[Alben Barkley]

Quite possibly Gore, actually. He would have been very well-positioned for a comeback, Nixon ‘68 style. I remember there was some buzz about him possibly running again even as it was. Without Hillary in the race, I bet he goes for it and he has a very good shot of winning without Obama as well.

In fact, looking it up confirms my memory was correct: Gore teased a run, grassroots movements attempted to draft him, and hypothetical polls showed him doing about as well as Obama and better than Edwards, behind only Hillary. I bet he runs and beats Edwards if those are the two biggest names in the race. Even if others like Kerry ran, Gore would have been more popular at the time. People still saw him as having had the election stolen from him, and his progressive credentials shot up thanks to An Inconvenient Truth.

[NewYorkExpress]

Assuming the Rielle Hunter scandal isn't butterflied away, and someone like Gore still doesn't run (I think Gore still sits it out to focus on his climate advocacy), the most likely scenario is Vilsack wins Iowa, Edwards wins New Hampshire (barely), Richardson wins Nevada, and Edwards wins South Carolina.

Richardson ultimately wins the nomination on Super Tuesday, after the Rielle Hunter affair/lovechild is publicly leaked to the mainstream media, and probably selects Obama as his running mate.

[Chips]

Alben I think has it right.

[Del Tachi]

Yeah it would have been Gore

[UWS]

Either Gore, Edwards or Richardson.