How would you have voted?: 2008 Democratic Presidential Primaries

[Rat]

Who in the Democratic field in 2008 would you have voted for?

Without hindsight, I'd probably choose Edwards. But with it, I guess I'm lean Obama. Biden would've had my consideration too, but he had no real shot.

[Goldwater]

Without hindsight, probably Richardson. With hindsight, Biden I guess.

[Progressive Pessimist]

With hindsight: Clinton.

At the time I was too young to vote, but I was swept up in the Obama fever.

[Mr. Smith]

Was too young, but Clinton.

[S019]

Clinton

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

I think Dodd is an underrated choice. Sort of like Ted Kennedy without the baggage (albeit without the charisma too). Obama wasn't the best choice to actually govern from 2009 onwards and in terms of electability just about all of these would have won in 2008.

[RGM2609]

Obama was a disaster, Clinton is just a catastrophe at politics and might have lost in 2012 if not in 2008, but Biden has way exceeded my expectations in office. He would've been ever better 15 years younger. So him.

[Big Abraham]

Kucinich. 2008 could have marked something of a turning point for American politics, but instead we got saddled with neolibs all around and an indefinite extension of the Bush doctrine.

[RI]

Obama then, Obama now.

[TDAS04]

1. Clinton
2. Biden
3. Obama
4. Dodd
5. Gravel
6. Richardson
7. Kucinich
8. Edwards

I didn’t actually vote that time, I was registered as an independent.

[Electric Circus]

Nominating Obama over Clinton is the second biggest mistake that a major party has made in my lifetime.

[MyLifeIsYours]

Mike Gravel is the candidate with the best moral conscious here. No choice in Hell of winning, I will join for the ride.

[wnwnwn]

 Dodd or Obama agaisnt Clinton

[VPH]

Obama with hindsight and without. There are a number of things I would have changed about his Presidency, but I still think he was the best of the field. Keeping Edwards' scumbag scandal in mind...

1. Obama
2. Biden
3. Clinton

[President Johnson]

Obama

I would probably have preferred Biden already back then in my heart, but he didn't have a chance. Ideally, I would have wanted Al Gore to run again and then pick Obama as his running mate. A more experienced Obama can run in 2016 then.

[EternalOptimistPopulist]

Kucinich

[GeneralMacArthur]

Mike Gravel is the candidate with the best moral conscious here. No choice in Hell of winning, I will join for the ride.

It's easy to give the appearance of a "good moral conscience" when you have no chance in hell of winning because nobody will ever ask you to elaborate on your positions by addressing the difficult challenges that require moral tradeoffs.

For instance, if you are a real candidate and you say "healthcare should be free", you will be asked how you would pay for it, what programs you would cut to recuperate the money or what taxes you would raise, and how you would deal with edge cases like hypochondriacs or extremely expensive procedures.

If you are a fake candidate like Gravel then you can say "healthcare should be free" and nobody will ask you anything they'll just applaud you and say "wow look at this guy who doesn't beat around the bush"

[MyLifeIsYours]

Mike Gravel is the candidate with the best moral conscious here. No choice in Hell of winning, I will join for the ride.

It's easy to give the appearance of a "good moral conscience" when you have no chance in hell of winning because nobody will ever ask you to elaborate on your positions by addressing the difficult challenges that require moral tradeoffs.

For instance, if you are a real candidate and you say "healthcare should be free", you will be asked how you would pay for it, what programs you would cut to recuperate the money or what taxes you would raise, and how you would deal with edge cases like hypochondriacs or extremely expensive procedures.

If you are a fake candidate like Gravel then you can say "healthcare should be free" and nobody will ask you anything they'll just applaud you and say "wow look at this guy who doesn't beat around the bush"

When the other "winnable" candidates are just  preaching to the choir it helps to have somebody with principles who stands tooth and nail. You had an actual man with a anti-war record, having been one of the champions of the Pentagon Papers in the Nixon adminstration. Obama was a phony in trying to get the anti-war vote, as it was fair game to call out the Iraq War from the outside from not being a elected representative at the time. When Obama enter the oval office he lost any anti-war credentials with the aggressive imperialistic actions of his adminstration. Gravel would have stood by what he had sat out in his political career, there's no question he would have been a better leader than Obama or Hillary.

[Del Tachi]

Hillary!

lol @ everybody saying Biden.  2008 Biden was a joke. 

[PSOL]

Kucinich. 2008 could have marked something of a turning point for American politics, but instead we got saddled with neolibs all around and an indefinite extension of the Bush doctrine.

Electoral politics often disappoints. Although I do like Kucinich if I would vote it would most likely go to the PSL. Gotta admit with great tickets like Riva/Puryear, Nader/Gonzalez, and Moore/Alexander the Left had a great lineup that year.

What I’m more disappointed with was utopians and liberals taking up all the oxygen in 2011 and not forming workers councils with all those people in the main squares across America.

[beaver2.0]

For some reason I was John Edwards' number one fan in 2008 so him. Good thing I wasn't able to vote then.

[dw93]

Edwards without hindsight, Biden or Clinton with it.

[Lambsbread]

At the time, if I were old enough to vote and thought the same way I do now, I would've absolutely loved Obama.

With hindsight, I think I would've been split between Hillary and Obama. I wonder how Trump's trajectory would have gone if Hillary had won. He may have challenged her in 2012, but I doubt he would've won at that time. He also gained much of his political relevance in the 2010s from questioning Obama's birth certificate, which he couldn't have done with Hillary for...some reason.

[CosmoKramer]

The rock thrower

[jaichind]

Kucinich