Democrats, liberals, and coastal media types made a man named Howard Schultz famous last week and a bona fide candidate for president of the United States.
An interview on 60 Minutes helped too.
Liberal ire, fury, and passionate intensity (which the worst are often full of) toward a man who is himself a liberal, and who seems entirely decent and utterly mild mannered, makes one think: Maybe Mr. Schultz is worth a look.
Who is Howard Schultz? He is the former CEO of Starbucks — the man who defined and marketed the mega-corporation as we now know it. He’s a self-made billionaire whose father was not a rich developer who gave him a leg up. He didn’t go to an elite school. He has never held office.
Mr. Schultz is a longtime supporter of liberal Democrats. He believes in global warming, NATO, and gay rights. But he also believes the nation’s debt is out of control, and that abolishing insurance companies is a bad idea. (He took on Sen. Kamala Harris on this point last week.) He’s a capitalist who wants to keep Obamacare but make it better.
And he thinks both parties practice destructive, toxic politics — to the detriment of good government and sound public policy.
And that brings us to the rub and the reason for all the hating on him: Mr. Schultz wants to run as an independent centrist.
He’s going to seek the presidency outside of the parties and the primaries — like Ross Perot.
And this possibility, for it is only that so far — Mr. Schultz would have to spend hundreds of millions to make himself known to the country and to get on the ballot in 50 states and he is still terribly naive and somewhat ill-informed about the size and difficulty of the undertaking — has brought the Democratic Party and its allies in the media out with pitchforks and torches and much gnashing of teeth.
Why?
It is not just because Mr. Schultz has abandoned the Democratic Party. It is because Mr. Schultz, as a social liberal and fiscal conservative with the ability to self-fund a campaign, is seen as someone who might siphon off anti-Trump votes and thereby deliver a second term to the President.
And that, dear friends, can never, ever be allowed. For the cognoscenti it is still unacceptable, and must yet be somehow proved criminal, that Donald Trump is President. A second term? Well that is the unthinkable.
So, after announcing his intent on 60 Minutes, Howard Schultz was subjected to a mugging: Openly hostile press interviews, screaming hecklers, op/eds and editorials now pleading, now condescendingly explaining life to him, now raging: Turn back Howard! There is no fury like the fury of the left.
Even the race card, which is always the ultimate name to call, was flashed.
Howard Schultz, the earnest Wendell Willkie type from Brooklyn and Seattle, is a threat to the restoration. And that sound you hear is the sound of the heads of thousands of pious know-it-alls exploding.
Well the last third party or independent candidate to be elected president was Lincoln. And politicians with real standing and constituencies — from Teddy Roosevelt to Robert La Follette — have failed. The third candidate, historically, usually moves the dial on an issue or two and gives people a respectable way to cast a protest vote. But those are both laudable ends.
Mr. Schultz may be too laid back, inexperienced and unknown to play in this league. And he doesn’t really have an issue, a wedge. Decency, competence and reliance on reason and evidence should all be wedges, but they are not.
Mr. Schultz also says he wants to bring the country together — in the center. This is laudable, but perhaps impossible, especially for a newbie. But let him try.
Let Mr. Schultz go to the country and make his case. And let the people, not the elites, decide.
The notion of someone in the center, who is not Donald Trump and also not Ms. Harris or Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren, may have a lot of appeal for a lot of Americans, especially disenchanted Republicans and independents.
The “spoiler” argument, which is as old as political entitlement and opportunism, is really undemocratic and un-American. It is undemocratic because, in a democracy, every candidate “spoils” it for every other candidate running. That’s the idea. It is un-American because no one is entitled to office, any office, or to any block of voters. And no one is entitled to limit another citizen’s choices.
A candidate has to earn his votes by persuasion. Every citizen has the right to speak, to participate, and to try to win office. It is by defending and expanding open politics that we increase the possibility of better ideas and higher character in public life. Who knows the nature of Mr. Schultz’s character or ideas. Let him demonstrate them. But who would contend that we do not, manifestly, need better choices and more quality?
First Published February 3, 2019, 11:00 a.m.
