The ambitions of a coffee billionaire

That’s just what we need, said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post: “another ego-crazed billionaire with zero experience in government who thinks he is destined to be president”. Enter Howard Schultz, the man who put a Starbucks on every corner. In an interview aired the week before last, the businessman revealed that he was seriously considering running for the White House as a centrist independent next year. Let’s hope he’s bluffing. Schultz would have no chance of winning, but his entry into the race would split the Democrat vote, with potentially disastrous consequences. The spectre of Donald Trump winning a second term looks “comfortably remote” at the moment. A recent poll showed him trailing any of his likely opponents. Indeed, if an election were held next week, “I’m pretty confident that Trump would lose to a ham sandwich”. But by siphoning off crucial votes, Schultz could yet win him another four years.

By even “flirting with such a risk, Schultz is demonstrating a level of megalomaniacal recklessness that is in itself disqualifying”, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Moreover, the whole idea of his candidacy is ill-conceived. Like many other members of America’s elite, he believes the country “hungers for a candidate who is socially liberal but fiscally conservative”, but the reality is the exact opposite. Trump’s victory was a clear demonstration that the “truly under-served market in American politics is voters who are socially conservative but economically liberal” – the type of people who might resent both “immigrants and Wall Street”, and be in favour of more generous benefits. Schultz is also naive to think he could win as an independent, said Jeff Greenfield on Politico. Every election year, lots of voters tell pollsters that they identify as “independent”, and would like the opportunity to back a third party or an independent candidate – “and then they never vote for one”, reverting instead to backing one of the big parties. Just ask Ross Perot, whose much-hyped independent run for the White House in 1992 got nowhere. Schultz is ignoring what Perot, and other business tycoons such as Trump and Michael Bloomberg, all came to understand, which is that money is not enough; you need the backing of a big party. If Schultz wants to be president, he should seek the Democratic nomination.

Perhaps it’s the political class that’s missing the big picture here, said Josh Kraushaar in National Journal. Independent presidential candidates do indeed have a poor record, but “there’s never been a moment in modern American history when both parties nominated populist disruptors”. With the Democrats lurching to the Left, talking of free healthcare and swingeing tax rises on the rich, there’s a chance that Schultz would be able to scoop up the votes of the many upscale suburban voters all across the country who deserted Trump in last year’s midterm elections. He could come to be seen as the “reassuring alternative” at a “time of chaos”. Stranger things have happened, agreed Roger L. Simon on Pjmedia.com. Remember, the experts once all agreed that a Trump victory was impossible. “Write Schultz off at your peril.”