Posted on 06/07/2018 12:02:33 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz is preparing to step away from the coffee chain he built into a global behemoth – and stoking speculation about a possible 2020 presidential run.
Yet, in the era of real estate magnate-turned-President Donald Trump, Schultz is just one of several business titans whose possible political aspirations might influence the next campaign for the White House.
For more than two centuries, most candidates for U.S. president had some public or military service on their resume before mounting a successful bid for the White House. But Trump's election in 2016 has opened the door for an extensive list of wealthy business titans who long to notch a place in history.
"There's a huge barrier that Donald Trump tore down," Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management, told CNBC. "And that pathway is now open for the Mark Cubans and the Bob Igers" to consider running for president.
Schultz left the door open to a run Tuesday, although he stressed that he's exploring all of his options for public service.
"There's a lot of things I can do as a private citizen other than run for the presidency of the United States," the Starbucks executive said in a CNBC interview. "Let's just see what happens."
But experienced politicians aren't about to step aside at the first sight of another billionaire candidate with tons of personal funds on hand.....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Trump in my view is completely unique.
He is above all else, for AMERICA.
The other guys, seem to be for the left. Or some people are for the right, on our side. But they are for one side, or the other.
Trump is for America.
Nobody else is. He will beat any challenger, I believe.
There’s a kernel of truth here that, yes, Trump did break the political/military establishment ‘barrier.’ On the other hand, he’s an extraordinarily unique individual who’s been a household name for >30 years. The article mentions Schultz and Iger (Starbucks & Disney CEOs), but neither of their names would mean much to >95% of voters. The only name being tossed around would is arguably analogous to Trump would be Oprah Winfrey. Love her or loathe her, everyone knows who she is.
I agree. Also, Trump has a folksiness too him similar to Reagan. Starbucks and Disney are not folksy operations nor are their owners.
Disney was, to a certain extent, before Walt died and for maybe another decade or so. But they’ve gone political.
Let’s go over the ten pluses and minuses of Howard Schultz (Starbucks CEO talking of running):
1. He talks of ‘conscious capitalism’, which means you are allowed to make money but taxation needs to take place to redistribute the money, and the company needs to take projects on for the ‘good of the world’. Who makes these ‘good of the world’ decisions is not a public discussion.
2. His ‘play’ here is to affect disenchanted people within both the Democratic and Republican Parties...frustrated over both Trump and the past Democratic ‘woes’. In some ways, he’s copying the Macron strategy, which dropped the center-left and center-right down to 22-percent (total between the two) in the first election run-up.
3. He has continued to hype ‘growing’ the economy. Oddly, he never explains how the growing would occur. He even attaches growth required because of the messed-up healthcare system.
4. He has noted the debt issue of the federal government and $21 trillion of debt is a major problem. Resolving it? Never discussed...he just hypes the problem.
5. On gun-control, he quietly hints that removing the ‘guns of war’ is approved by 70-percent of the US public. More or less, he’s saying that assault rifles would have to be legislated out of existence. Oddly, you can’t find a single nation that uses the AR15 for military operations. Now does he describe how you’d write the draft law to cover this, or get enough US Senators to vote for such a law.
6. He does recognize the VA is screwed up and veterans aren’t getting a fair deal. But other than recognizing this....as did George Bush, as did Barack Obama, as did President Trump....he’s yet to lay out any true fix or solution.
7. On the economy....Schultz does enjoy saying for the audience that the basis of the current successful economy is the fine work that President Obama accomplished, and to a lesser degree President Trump. No journalists has challenged him when making these statements, and they will continue until someone finally asks him what exactly President did accomplish to make the economy strong.
8. Schultz does continue to hype that 70-percent of undocumented aliens in the country....are NOT here because they crossed the border but because they were here legally and their visas just ran out. No journalist has stood up to challenge that statement. In his mind, you would just fix the problem by renewing the visas and automatically relieve 70-percent of the problem.
9. Schultz does continually hype that almost half of America does NOT have more than $500 in an account. It’s repeated often. Journalists allow him to say that but never come back and ask how you’d increase that $500 to $1000 or $2000, or whatever. Just suggesting jobs won’t cut it. Just suggesting getting CD-rates back up to 5-percent won’t cut it.
10. Schultz continually says the budget process is broken. He’ll even cite that there hasn’t been a real budgetary process existing in Congress for almost 25 years. On this, he is absolutely correct. All you have to do is fire the House leadership, and make a simple worded document that Congressional pay and benefits end as each budget concludes, and if you don’t pass a budget....you don’t get paid. Yet, I doubt that he’ll suggest anything....he’ll just pretend that it’s an unfixable problem.
My general view is that Schultz could affect two or three state races (California in particular, maybe Florida to a lesser degree). If he were to win two significant states in the Electoral College, then the election would not be decided in the normal fashion, and we’d go to the House (state by state) to elect the President. If you wanted a true mess of things...this might be the creation of such a mess.
Sorry Howard, it’ll take more than being a “titan” to beat Trump, or even to get elected President.
We’ve seen your liberal stances in your business...(”Let’s talk about race”).
It takes more than a single success and a bottom line to get elected. We didn’t elect Donald because he’s a billionaire, it was because we’ve been hearing his stances on America, and we like his outlook on it. He’s turned a lot of things around in 500 days, while I think if you were in there, Howard, it would be another endless parade of liberal (Obama) crap, like a plethora of councils, committees, and “programs” to give even more to minorities, banning guns, etc.
A coffee chain is not your key to the kingdom, and you’re not very well liked outside the liberal world, anyway.
Go have a latte and douse your illusions of grandeur.
as far as Disney, Walt was the visionary. Starting in 1984, the magic changed with the lineage of Wells, Eisner, Iger. Shareholders might like that Iger & Co squeeze every cent from customer pockets, but the magic is gone.
Neither of these men, not Oprah have the chops to be POTUS. They see Trump and think it's easy.
Schulz is a snowflake commie. Trump would cream him
Bookmark
Schultz? NOPE.
Igor? NOPE.
Trump? OOOOOOOOODLES YES!
Nuff said.
Someone remind CNBC how many million$ per delegate that Yeb! squandered.
What have Iger and Schultz done that compares to reviving the economy, driving unemployment down to record lows, defeating ISIS and working towards peace in Korea?
These guys are posturing and have no intention of running,
Just a cheap method to get the board compensation committee
To throw another 100 million on the next pay raise.
So his idea to shut down his stores for a mini employee re-education camp was a publicity stunt designed to kick off his presidential bid?
Schultz doesn’t realize there is no way the Democrap party allows someone outside their inner circle to get elected to the top spot. He will be a flash in the pan in the primaries. President Trump, on the other hand, breezed past the Republican establishment and took out their selected candidates first. Part of the appeal of Trump for me was that he won on the cheap against both Yeb and Hillary. That demonstrated he is going to be a penny pincher when he gets control of the spending. Unfortunately, we still have McConnell gumming up the works. Regarding Schultz, I am reminded of the line from Scott Hamilton (and why I no longer watch figure skating), “It was a great performance, but it’s not her time.”
Who cares? Trump wins easily and in doing so bring Blacks back to the Republican party.
It will be ideal if Schultz, Cuban, Eiger, Steyer, Doomberg and any other lib billionaire spend tens of millions on their own lost causes.
Even better if they convince other dem donors to throw more tens of millions at them...completely exhausting and depleting the money that would be spent on the actual candidate...in my view either Harris or Booker.
The party will be splintered even more than it is now, big donors fatigued and not contributing and moderates staying home with radicals like Harris or Booker on the ticket.
So, Howard, please do! And bring Joey with you!
For the competition for Slow Joe's electoral space? He'll squash them like a bug.
But it might help Karamela: "look at these old white men, ain'tchoo tireds of old white mens?"
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