Howard Schultz doesn’t seem to be very good at this whole “running for president” thing

| 11:00 pm EST January 27, 2019
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Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz appears to be seriously interested in running for president in 2020 as an independent. The trouble for him: no one else seems to have any serious interest in seeing him run. In fact, based on the reactions we’re seeing, it appears that a whole lot of people have serious interest in not seeing him run, and with good reason.

Howard Schultz doesn’t seem to have much of a platform, beyond (incorrectly) insisting that both political parties are somehow to blame for what ails America, and insisting that it can somehow all be fixed simply by reducing the deficit. The only legitimate way to reduce the deficit is to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy, but most politicians who talk about deficit reduction just end up making the deficit bigger by cutting taxes for the wealthy while blaming the poor. It’s not yet clear what Schultz thinks he’s going to do, because he doesn’t even seem to understand how elections work.

For instance, during his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night, Howard Schultz insisted that as an independent candidate, he plans to get his name on the general election ballot in not only every state, but also in “every county and every district.” Numerous observers on Twitter were quick to point out that nothing works that way, and that it’s evidence Schultz hasn’t even done his most basic election homework.

But it wasn’t just Howard Schultz’s surprisingly weak interview that soured people on the idea of him running. Donald Trump has spent the past two years proving that prior experience in office matters when it comes to succeeding or failing as president. It’s not just that Trump is a mentally unstable criminal and racist piece of filth; it’s that he has no idea what he’s doing. There is no reason to believe that someone like Schultz would either.

Of course the worst aspect of a Howard Schultz general election campaign is that even if he only ended up getting one or two percent of the vote as a “Brand B” protest candidate, it could be enough to determine whether the Democrat or Republican wins, depending on which side he siphons the most votes from. In that sense, Schultz would end up being just another Jill Stein. Schultz recently retired as Starbucks CEO and seems to be trying to find a new way to make a name for himself. If he goes through with this, he’ll merely end up ruining his reputation for all time.