Ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has long been considering running for president and has met strong opposition from Democrats, who believe that his campaign will hand Trump re-election.
Howard Schultz, a centrist who tries to appeal to the less radical voters on both sides of the political, has attracted the ire of many people on the left side of the political spectrum because, like President Trump, he is a billionaire who is looking into running for president with no previous political knowledge and claims to be America’s saviour.
Speaking at a Barnes & Noble in New York City in January, Howard Schultz hinted that he would add his name to the ballot and run for president. The idea of Schultz running has been giving Democrats headaches, and polling run by Schultz’s campaign showed that their headaches are for good reason, with the poll’s results presenting the fact that, although the Schultz campaign would only rack up nine percent of the vote, it would be enough to re-elect Trump.
Schultz, whose campaign is running mainly on Democratic social ideals, such as the right to abortion and anti-gun laws, and on Republican economic ideals, such as tax cuts, was quick to distance himself from either party, stating on his website that, “We must continue a conversation about how the country’s political and social ideals would look like if the American people weren’t held hostage by two rigid political parties.”
Howard Schultz may have something to say about the current US political state. Many supporters call his life a fairytale story. Schultz was born poor in Brooklyn and worked his way up to a net worth of three point five billion dollars. Donald Trump’s shock election upset in 2016, the first real indication that people with no previous political knowledge can run for office and win, has surely buoyed Schultz’s 2020 hopes.
Since the beginning of Schultz’s campaign, it has been clear what he’s trying to achieve with his campaign: attract Democratic voters with his leftist social policies and hope that his rightist economic policies can attract the more central Republican voters. Many critics have touted Howard Schultz as the left-centrist Donald Trump, even though Howard Schultz has called Trump unfit for office on many occasions.
Aligning himself with the moderate voter is a smart plan, but ultimately isn’t a successful one, as polls done by Schultz’s campaign have shown. However, his campaign would re elect President Trump, someone who Schultz himself has called unfit for office multiple times. If Howard Schultz has the nation’s best interests in mind, then he should not run for president in 2020.
