JANUARY 28, 2019
Kuttner on TAP
We Need Howard Schultz
to Run for President Like Starbucks Needs Cockroaches. It was inevitable that some socially liberal,
economically center-right billionaire would run for president. So Howard
Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, has nominated himself.
This is sheer poison. His
story, that voters are hungering for a moderate who can solve problems, is
malarkey. Here’s what Schultz told
The New York Times:
“We have a broken political system with both
parties basically in business to preserve their own ideology without a
recognition and responsibility to represent the interests of the American
people,” Mr. Schultz said in the interview.
“Republicans and Democrats alike—who no
longer see themselves as part of the far extreme of the far right and the far
left—are looking for a home.”
No, Howard, we don’t have
a “broken political system.” We do have a broken economic system.
Politically, we have
wall-to-wall Republican obstruction. And after three Democratic administrations
that were far too Wall Street-afflicted, we are finally recovering a Democratic
Party committed to working to benefit regular Americans.
Schultz could really
screw that up. He is a social liberal who opposed Seattle’s $15 minimum
wage—just what we don’t need. The political problem is that lots of suburban
moderates, who defected to the Democrats in 2018 out of disgust with Trump,
could vote for a guy like Schultz. And in a three-way, Trump could even get
re-elected.
There is a long and
depressing history of independents running as spoilers. The only time it broke
to the advantage of the Democrats was in 1992, when the whacko H. Ross Perot took
more votes from George H.W. Bush and helped Bill Clinton get elected with just
43 percent of the popular vote. In 2020, it would help Trump, because his
hard-core 35 percent is not going to defect to support a Seattle latte
billionaire.
There is already some
chatter on social media about a Starbucks boycott. I’m not sure that would do
the trick—he’s no longer CEO—but a billionaire centrist proposing to save
America from Trump is the last thing America needs in 2020.
Starbucks has a history of
creating demands for products that consumers didn't know they needed. They
should gag on this one. ~ ROBERT
KUTTNER
