Leave it to the satirical website The Onion to perfectly capture the moment: “Howard Schultz Considering Independent Presidential Run After Finding No Initial Support Among Any Voter Groups.”
That’s right, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is mulling a run for president in 2020. But here’s the twist: Schultz, who says he’s a lifelong Democrat, would run as an independent, and the fact that he’s a multi-billionaire ($3.4B at last count, Forbes reports) means he could mount a serious effort.
The last multi-billionaire who tried the feat, H. Ross Perot, won more than 19 million votes nationwide, which was 18.9% of the vote. He proved a spoiler for George H.W. Bush, who won 37.4% of the vote but lost to Bill Clinton, who took the White House with just 43%. But that was way back in 1992, in the very early days of a crazy thing called the “world wide web” and long before social media.
Still, you’ve got to go all the way back to 1968 to find a third-party presidential candidate who won any Electoral College votes. That’s when former Alabama governor George Wallace won 46 electoral votes in the South on the American Independent Party ticket.
But if we’ve learned one thing, it’s that every four years, America changes exponentially. Who expected a first-term senator with the middle name of Hussein to win in 2008, or an egomaniacal reality TV show host to pull out a remarkable upset in 2016? And 2020 will be no different.
The most fascinating reaction from Schultz’s musings over a 2020 run came from Democrats — especially limousine liberals, the ones who love their frappuccinos from Starbucks.
“Howard Schultz running as an independent isn’t about bringing people together,” Tina Podlodowski, the Democratic Party chair in Schultz’s adopted home state of Washington, said in a statement on Sunday. “It’s about one person: Howard Schultz.”
Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress, wrote Saturday on Twitter that she’ll boycott Starbucks if Schultz gets in the race. “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,” she said. No more venti lattes for her.
“If Schultz entered the race as an independent, we would consider him a target … We would do everything we can to ensure that his candidacy is unsuccessful,” said Patrick McHugh, executive director of Priorities USA, which shelled out $200 million in the 2016 presidential election to back loser Hillary Clinton.
Schultz, who held a campaign-style event at the Barnes and Noble in New York City was heckled immediately. “Go back to Davos with the other billionaires!” someone shouted. “Don’t re-elect Trump!”
But Schultz isn’t just going after President Trump, he’s targeting the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. 2020 hopefuls like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris endorse free health care and jobs for all, and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez calls “the future of the party” — is pushing for a top tax rate of 70%.
“It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left,” Schultz told CNBC last June. “I ask myself, ‘How are we going to pay for all these things?’ in terms of things like single-payer or people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a job. I don’t think that’s realistic.”
“I respect the Democratic Party,” Schultz told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on Monday. “I no longer feel affiliated because I don’t know their views represent the majority of Americans. I don’t think we want a 70 percent income tax in America.”
Schultz, a true American success story who grew up in public housing in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was the first in his family to go to college, says he’s well aware of the fact that he may play spoiler if he chooses to run. “I wanna see the American people win,” he said. “I wanna 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.”
And he says Americans are mostly middle of the road, neither far-left nor far-right. “What we know, factually, is that over 40 percent of the electorate is either a registered Independent or currently affiliates themselves as an Independent,” Schultz said, “because the American people are exhausted. Their trust has been broken. And they are looking for a better choice.”
Michael Bloomberg, the New York billionaire who mulled a 2016 presidential candidacy before staying out of the race, urged Schultz not to run on Monday. “It’s no secret that I looked at an independent bid in the past. In fact I faced exactly the same decision now facing others who are considering it. The data was very clear and very consistent. Given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way an independent can win. That is truer today than ever before. 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. We must remain united, and we must not allow any candidate to divide or fracture us. The stakes couldn’t be higher.”
All we can say is, 2020 just got a whole lot more interesting.