Ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has decided he would like to run for President of The United States. He is a businessman much like Donald Trump who would be seen as an outsider to the political swamp in Washington.
To this point, many aren’t taking him all that seriously. Trump has mocked him saying he doesn’t have the guts to run and Democrats want him to go because they fear he’ll take votes from them and in turn hand the Presidency to Donald Trump. Neither party is looking at him as someone with the ability to become President.
Co-founder of PJ Media, Roger L. Simon thinks that Schultz may have a chance to win:
Elections are often a reaction to the previous one. America will be searching for a calm, level-headed voice. That, we know, is not Trump, nor is it the hard-left candidate that could well, in fact likely will, win the Democratic nomination. Current frontrunner Kamala Harris is far from reassuring. She’s a shrill (see the Kavanaugh hearings) quasi-socialist promising pie in the sky — Medicare-for-all, debt-free college, guaranteed pre-K, minimum basic income, confiscatory taxes — and she’s just getting started. Bernie and others will soon be following suit. Fauxcahontas already has, competing in a game of socialist one-upmanship. Even supposedly centrist Biden is playing along. Who will win the approval of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Too bad she’s too young to run.
The cost of all this, the actual numbers, if they ever even publish any, will be stratospheric. The national debt will reach the moon and beyond. Maybe Alpha Centauri. If this nonsense were all enacted, the stock market would plunge, unemployment would soar, incomes would plummet, and we’d be headed for a global Depression. It’s that stupid.
And Howard Schultz knows it. That is why — straight out of the box or whatever — he has isolated the escalating national debt as his main issue and pilloried Trump for doing nothing about it. (He has a point there.) At first, he will seem stodgy to “idealistic” millennials, but after a while, they too will wise up. It’s their futures too, after all. The outrageous costs of the Democratic platform will be made known to them and then some. The election, already started, is long. The hard left’s proposals will not wear well.
Schultz’s policies would end up being much closer to Trump’s than to the Democratic opposition. He would want to increase taxes, but only a smidge, so as not to disrupt the economy. He opposes Medicare for all as far too expensive. He would be for a strong defense, at least relatively. He would be middle-of-the-road on immigration, where many Americans are. Â He would be Trump-lite, a palatable Donald that many of the media could swallow because he wouldn’t insult them for being liars (even though they are) or say outrageous (though often accurate) things for them to deliberately misinterpret.
I certainly agree with portions of Simons assessment. Many Americans will be looking for a middle of the road candidate bin 2020. As great as President Trump has been the Media has created a really unbeatable hysteria surrounding him. Trump will not be able to reach 60% of approval because of the Media working overtime to make sure they paint him as bad as possible. Even people that know the Media are liars still feel the effects of the constant hysteria. Due to this the electorate just gets frustrated with everyone in power. The Media and Donald Trump.
With all of that being said this still doesn’t lead me to believe that Schultz can get enough of the electorate to win. He is likely to take the Never-Trump collation as well as a good amount of independents. Besides those groups, I’m not sure who will vote for him. No Progressives will vote his way and he will not be able to tap into the base of Donald Trump either.
Until I see more data proving that he has a voting base I do not think he will be able to get the votes to win the Presidency. However, that doesn’t mean he should be taken lightly. If he runs the Democrats will need to win on the strength of their base and not simply on the idea that they aren’t Trump. Most moderate Democrats will not vote for the far-left Progressive that they will nominate and neither will independents. Trump also should pay attention to Schultz. If Trump brings his administration to the middle then he will be playing right into the hands of Schultz. Trump must stick to the agenda he ran on and keep his base strongly behind him.
