Comment and Reply to Post About Howard Schultz Independent Run

In yesterday's post, "I Love Your Coffee, But Let's Leave It At That," I urged Howard Schultz to stay out of the 2020 campaign because 3rd party/independents never win, they just prevent others from winning, and because Schultz has no governmental experience and offers nothing in particular.

I promptly heard from an anonymous Schultz fan:

AnonymousJanuary 28, 2019 at 5:47 PM

Be realistic! He'd be great! Let's get our lefties buddies lined-up towards the center & beat Drump!
Be real Buster a far left view won't beat Drump!
(Got the hair up on your neck, huh?!)

ReplyDelete

I am realistic.  An independent presidential candidate is what's unrealistic.  If Howard Schultz is really so "great," why can't he run as a Democrat and just blow away his competition?  Because he knows he can't.  He's not that attractive and he'd never break through the clutter of twenty other candidates.  The far easier path for him is to buy his way onto the ballot as an independent and cannibalize some Democratic votes -- not enough to win, but perhaps enough to help Trump win again with, say, 40% of the popular vote.

A centrist independent is no guarantee of anything, certainly not a guarantee of beating Trump.  That's unrealistic.  In today's political arena, a centrist will seem squishy and noncommittal compared to the Bombastic Bozo.  A centrist will seem like Hank Kimball:  "It's a beautiful morning, Mr. Douglas!  Well, not a beautiful morning, I guess, but not the worst either.  I've seen worse and it's better than those." 

What is the "far left view" that bothers you?  My desire for an improved American health care system?  There's nothing far left about that, and I have plenty of company that share in that wish with me.  Obamacare took big steps in the right direction, but Trump has done everything he can to unwind those advances and take us backwards, far away from the rest of the developed world.

So, yeah, when I hear Schultz's brusque dismissal of universal health care -- "We can't afford it" -- it does indeed get the hair up on my neck, at least what's left of my hair.  Since you're anonymous, I don't know who you are and you may not know that I'm a Stage 4 cancer patient.  I can tell you that our good ol' market-driven, capitalist American way of dealing with such diseases is a disaster -- we pay far more than any other developed nation in the world, and Schultz seems to think that's all we can afford.  I say bullshit.  The rest of the world is able to afford health care for all at far lower prices.  Pursuit of the same for us is not leftist radicalism, it's mainstream common sense.  It's a priority for me and a whole lot of other Americans.

I'm not a single-issue person, but the single most important thing we've got to do now is get rid of Trump by winning in 2020.  Compared to Trump, Howard Schultz is a far superior human being and he'd be a better president.  Almost anyone would be.  But trying to gain the White House as a 3rd party/independent is a losing strategy.  Schultz won't win, and he may keep a great Democratic candidate from winning too.

Mr. Anonymous, if you really want to "beat Drump," send Schultz as a Democrat or not at all.