Former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz is a businessman who believes that profitably huckstering billions of lattes is roughly the same as overseeing the world's largest economy, commanding its most muscular military, and connecting hostile Republicans and antagonistic Democrats — if only he can "share [his] truth, listen to yours, build trust, and focus on things that can make us better." I sort of tear up just thinking about it.
Most others feel like throwing up; not because of the nauseating sentimentality, but because an independent Schultz candidacy threatens a second term for Donald Trump. Think Ralph Nader and Al Gore. That's what (maybe) former politician and fellow billionaire businessman Mike Bloomberg explicitly thinks: "In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the President. That’s a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can’t afford to run it now," he warned yesterday in a statement.
Schultz disagrees, to the limited extent he has given any thought to the subject. He knows a plurality of voters self-identify as independent, while believing they reject the whole left-right thing. From this he assumes they would vote, as he calls himself, for a "centrist independent." But any low-level campaign staffer would know different; Schultz's mistake is in believing — for others — that "independent" means "centrist." In actuality most self-described independents identify philosophically with one of the two major parties — both of which Schultz sees as "extreme" — and therefore are at odds with each other; as polarized as Democrats and Republicans. Centrism has little to do with political independence.
Also disagreeing with Mayor Bloomberg is, to no one's surprise, the Wall Street Journal editorial board. "Why couldn’t Mr. Schultz appeal to independents and Republicans who voted reluctantly for Mr. Trump but are put off by the constant chaos of his governing style?" Although the Journal's high honchos are mostly scheming here — they'd love to see the Democratic vote diluted — they do make a possibly valid point.
Even though the editors base their speculation on "The Perot Myth" ("[He] split the Republican coalition … and helped to elect Bill Clinton," recalls the Journal in a discredited interpretation of '92), it's true that Schultz could split the erstwhile Trump vote and help to elect the Democrat. The imposing question remains, however: Why take the chance?
An even riskier chance is that of a President Schultz, which could never happen, but at any rate here's the frighteningly amateurish side of Schultz, as he explained it to CBS' "60 Minutes": "I want to see the American people win. I want to see America win. I don't care if you're a Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, Republican. Bring me your ideas. And I will be an independent person who will embrace those ideas because I am not, in any way, in bed with a party."
The other day I cited John Tyler as a spectacularly failed president. Why was he such a flop? Because as president, he decided he would not, in any way, be in bed with a party. The result? Everybody in Washington hated him. Tyler should have noticed that the nation's capital city is something of a partisan town. Which, evidently, Schultz has also failed to grasp.