We Need Howard Schultz to Run for President Like Starbucks Needs Cockroaches

[babylonsister]

https://prospect.org/article/we-need-howard-schultz-run-president-starbucks-needs-cockroaches

We Need Howard Schultz to Run for President Like Starbucks Needs Cockroaches
Robert Kuttner
January 28, 2019
The Democratic Party is finally willing to work for working people again. Schultz could really screw that up.

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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.