Howard Schultz, the CEO who spent over three decades transforming Starbucks from a lesser-known Seattle coffeehouse to a global juggernaut, might run for president. In any other election cycle, a self-made billionaire entertaining a third-party bid wouldn’t garner much more than a side-eye from the masses. Schultz’s public flirtations have been met with apoplectic fury.
“Vanity projects that help destroy democracy are disgusting. If he enters the race, I will start a Starbucks boycott because I’m not giving a penny that will end up in the election coffers of a guy who will help Trump win,” wrote Neera Tanden, a core adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which planned to appoint Schultz as labor secretary.
“Billionaires like Howard Schultz & Michael Bloomberg want to keep a rigged system in place that benefits only them and their buddies. And they plan to spend gobs of cash to try and buy the Presidency to keep it that way. Not on my watch,” tweeted millionaire Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has about as much a chance of winning the presidency as she has Cherokee ancestry.
“If you’re bored with life Howard Schultz, may I suggest building homes for the world’s poor with Jimmy Carter? Or using your billions like Bill Gates to help fight malaria? Or even crocheting in your spare time? Much better than working out your existential crisis in an election,” said George Takei. (No word of Takei’s take on O’Rourke’s existential crisis.)
Obama podcast bro Jon Favreau asked, “None of the explanations coming from Howard Schultz or his advisors answer a very simple question: if he thinks he has a winning message, why can’t he run in the Democratic primary? Why does he get to skip that contest? Just because he’s a billionaire?”
Favreau’s question is actually one worth entertaining. The obvious answer, and the one that’s best for Democrats, is that it’s because Schultz isn’t a Democrat under the current definition. Being a Democrat today means fully embracing socialized healthcare, wealth taxes, a 70 percent top marginal tax rate, banning nuclear power, and providing federal jobs guarantees. There’s no place in the Democratic Party for Schultz’s rather anodyne genre of pro-business, anti-deficit liberalism.
Right?
Well, Democratic outrage would imply otherwise. If the Democratic constituency is as far-left as the party leaders seem to believe, then Schultz would harm President Trump’s re-election chances far more than he would harm the odds of whoever wins the Democratic nomination. After all, Trump’s post-shutdown polling has sunk from bad to abysmal, and even Warren wouldn’t be worse than Clinton, perhaps the worst presidential nominee in modern American history. Plenty of Republicans and centrists who held their noses to vote against Clinton would be more than happy to find another candidate who doesn’t want to abolish private healthcare, and Democrats will likely see 2018 turnout instead of the unenthused 2016 trickle.
Democratic outrage over Schultz indicates they fear that he’d pull more from their constituency than from Republicans. If that’s the case, maybe the party should get serious about nominating someone who isn’t trying to nationalize one-fifth of the economy and run job creators out of the country. So far, nearly every serious Democratic contender has embraced “Medicare For all,” a program that by the most conservative estimate would cost $ 32.6 trillion, or 54 times our annual defense budget, over its first ten years. Presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., boasted about eradicating private health insurance, a prospect that just 37 percent of Americans support. Warren’s wealth tax is legally tenuous at best and possibly a direct violation of constitutional law. And having more than two years to regroup from the losses of 2016, Clinton Inc. just can’t stop insulting half the nation as moronic “deplorables.”
If Democrats want to kneecap Schultz’s run, they need to offer better than whatever dregs of desperation they’re currently putting on the table. Blue Dog Democrats and Trump-skeptical centrists wait upon a Biden announcement with baited breath, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whom I’ve already bet on as the dark horse of the race, has taken a public stand against “Medicare for all,” at least in its current form.
But all of this assumes that the Democratic establishment doesn’t immolate their odds by pushing forward another unlikable candidate but with even more extremist policies. And quite frankly, I wouldn’t bet on that.
As for Schultz’s part, he’s already said that he’s taking his time to decide if he’s running and will only do so if he could feasibly win. Trump may not be your cup of tea, but if Democrats decide to go full Caracas-levels of crazy, Schultz may actually shoot his shot as the calm candidate who won’t try to shove socialism down your throats. And that, the Democrats should fear.