What if the 2008 Democratic National Convention was brokered?

[UWS]

As this Wikipedia article noted, due to close delegates counts for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, there was early speculation of the first brokered convention in decades during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. A candidate needed to win at least 2210 delegates on a total of 4419 to clinch the Democratic nomination.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_National_Convention

So if neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton won over 2210 delegates, if the 2008 DNC was brokered, which one of these two candidates would have won in such a brokered convention? How would it have had any influence on the 2008 general election results? Would the results have been closer.

[brucejoel99]

Well, for one thing, I don't think we'd see a compromise candidate happen: in the modern age, media saturation makes a big difference & I don't believe the voters would accept a new face when they'd been told for so long that it'd be one or the other.

For another, the key prerequisite for this scenario is to have Hillary hire somebody who actually knows how the nominating process works & has enough clout inside the campaign to force a change in strategy such that the large bloc of February caucus states weren't effectively abandoned to Obama.

Now, Hillary's biggest problem from the outset was that she had far less support than expected from the Democratic establishment. People like Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, & even Chuck Schumer (her own NY Senate colleague) were meeting with Obama behind her back as early as 2006, seeing him as the likeliest anybody-but-Hillary candidate. Anybody-but-Hillary was therefore a fairly strong impetus in 2008, & the convention would see that establishment support become public, with the perceived (& actual) betrayal of the Clintons out in the open, party bigwigs such as Al Gore speaking in Obama's favor, & no reason left to be "polite" out of respect to Bill Clinton's elder statesmanship, which was temporarily damaged at this point due to frustrated statements & finger-wagging.

This means that you'd essentially have 4 machines working: (1) the establishment in favor of Obama; (2) Hillary with equal popular support that consists mainly of Clinton cronies among higher-ups; (3) the aforementioned anybody-but-Hillary crowd, now in too deep to back away; & (4) Edwards still thinking he could influence the race in favor of one candidate or another in exchange for a big role, but this is pretty much just Edwards' delusion.

This leaves Hillary fighting Obama's true believers & anti-Clintonites. Her advantage would be the threat of losing women & blue collar voters. This would bounce against the danger of alienating minorities by giving Obama a raw deal. Personally, it's hard to see Hillary pulling through & coming out ahead in this 2-against-1 scenario. Bill Clinton's pull within the party would be quite weak at this time, as opinions would be particularly polarized. Obama most likely lands on the ticket with a woman who isn't Hillary, or a blue-collar hero... so, probably Joe Biden.