“Ego-crazed.” “Reprehensible.” “God help us all.”
That’s a sampling of the venom hurled by furious Democrats this week – not at President Trump, but at former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, after Mr. Schultz announced that he is exploring a run for president.
The problem? Schultz says he would run as an independent. Or as Democrats see it, a spoiler, who would have no chance of winning but very well might secure Mr. Trump’s reelection by siphoning critical votes away from the Democratic nominee.
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Many were quick to dismiss Schultz’s argument that 40 percent of Americans now identify as independents because they’re more moderate than the two parties – since polling and research have shown that most of those voters, in fact, behave consistently like partisans. Likewise, many refuted his claim that there’s a large appetite for a centrist candidate who is socially liberal but economically conservative. A frequently cited study by political scientist Lee Drutman shows that, if anything, the opposite might be closer to the truth.
Not surprisingly, Schultz’s advisers – who include former Obama aide Bill Burton and former McCain aide Steve Schmidt – pushed back. “Nobody who is speculating about [Schultz playing the spoiler] on Twitter has given any thought to the possibility that the Democratic Party nominates someone who is so far to the left that it guarantees Trump a reelection,” Mr. Schmidt told Politico. “And at that point, the only person who would theoretically be able to stop Trump from a second term is a centrist candidacy of someone like Schultz.”
While it’s true that centrist, business-friendly candidates often tend to be “duds with the general electorate,” notes National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar, there’s also “never been a moment in modern American history when both parties nominated populist disruptors.” If that happens, upper-middle-class suburbanites – “the kind that swung the House from Republican to Democratic control in 2018” – might be open to a third-party option.
“Just like analysts dismissed Trump winning the Electoral College, an independent candidate who could hit 30-35 percent in the polls would have a real shot at getting to 270 electoral votes,” Mr. Kraushaar writes. “If [Schultz] focuses his message on providing competence at a time of growing chaos, he could become a reassuring alternative for a critical mass of Americans in 2020.”
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