A Starbucks in the White House?

I watched with interest the Town Hall with Howard Schultz a couple of weeks ago. Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, is considering a run for the presidency in 2020 as an Independent.

Sidebar: I also listened to the Town Hall with Bernie Sanders. Like the Schultz event, Sanders’ was hosted by Fox News. By way of a brief summary, Schultz performed far better than Sanders, who came off as combative, partisan and angry, and dodged challenging questions. The most comical exchange was when one of the moderators noted that Sanders, a self-avowed Socialist, wrote a best-selling book and earned millions of dollars, adding, “Isn’t that the very definition of capitalism?” There was a pregnant pause as the prey considered that either of the trap’s jaws would finish it, then Sanders replied, incredibly, “No.” After which he proceeded to divert the discussion to a different topic, rather than explain his obviously illogical answer.

I found Schultz to be intelligent and credible. Plus you have to respect a guy who turned mediocre coffee into an iconic brand with a cult following.

And he’s a likable, respectful man. In fact, that’s a lot of what he proposes to bring to the White House: respectability, decorum, character. At one point, he turned to the audience and polled them, asking them to raise their hands if they would want their children to emulate the behavior of Donald Trump.

Not one hand went up.

But, you know what? While I wouldn’t have raised my hand, either, I’m not necessarily looking for a President whose behavior I’d want my kids to emulate. I want a problem-solver, and I’ll live with churlishness to get that. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to emulate the behavior of JFK or Bill Clinton, but both were decent Presidents overall. I would want my kids to emulate the behavior of Jimmy Carter when he was President, but other than appointing Paul Volcker to chair the Fed, Carter’s presidency was an unmitigated dumpster fire. So Schultz’s question to the Town Hall audience evokes a “so what” response from me in terms of the criteria for selecting a POTUS.

Schultz also took on Sanders’ “Medicare for All” pipe dream, correctly noting that 180 million people who currently get their insurance through their employer would lose that insurance.

Second sidebar: Sanders would have it replaced by government insurance, but he ignores the fact that, to keep premiums affordable, someone has to subsidize them, so under his plan the portion of premiums currently borne by employers would be borne by taxpayers, meaning the very people paying the premiums. In other words, we’d all pay 100% of our healthcare premiums, vs. paying a much smaller percent due to employer subsidies. Meanwhile, corporations would presumably save the expense of their share of employees’ insurance premiums, becoming even more profitable, which Sanders claims to be against, but no one is questioning him on that (which doesn’t matter; he’d dodge the answer). Sanders also doesn’t mention that the government would get to decide what treatments you can get, and what ones you’d be denied. O, Canada.

Schultz cited the fact that Starbucks was the first U.S. company to offer healthcare to all its employees, including part-timers. That sounds great, but what does it really mean? It means that Starbucks arranges private group medical insurance from Premera Blue Cross and Kaiser to be provided for its employees who work at least 20 hours a week (sorry, part-timers who work fewer hours), who pay at least $37 per paycheck for the benefit, depending on the plan (plans with lower premiums have higher deductibles, just like everybody else’s employer-provided plan). So a part-timer working 20 hours a week and making, say $15 an hour in Seattle, where Starbucks is headquartered, would see more than 12% of his or her pre-tax paycheck go to insurance coverage.

Now, I’m not saying that’s bad; it’s still a good benefit. What Starbucks does is pretty much what every other company does: use private insurance companies to provide benefits to their employees, and pay a part of the negotiated group premiums on employees’ behalf. I’m just saying that Starbucks isn’t doing anything revolutionary, and the only thing Schultz would need to do to expand the Starbucks healthcare “miracle” to the entire U.S. would be to just eliminate Obamacare and maintain the old status quo.

Schultz noted that 42% of Americans are “disgusted” with political fighting between Republicans and Democrats. (Count me among them.) He claims that, as an Independent representing neither party, he could bring both sides together and stop that fighting.

Yeah, that’s what another outsider said in 2016, but look what happened. The problem is that as long as the Congress and the electorate are made up of Democrats and Republicans, there’s going to be fighting between the two parties, and any Independent President has about as much chance of stopping that as PeeWee Herman has of breaking up a fight between Mike Tyson and Conor McGregor.

And again, while I’m fed up with the partisan bickering, I’m looking for policy solutions to specific problems, not a guy who can come in and get everyone singing Kum-Ba-Yah, but whose ideas I’m opposed to.

In terms of policy, Schultz is a much younger Joe Biden, without the creepy groping and with business acumen. And unlike Biden, Schultz is his own man. When asked whether he felt that President Trump had done some good things, Schultz replied that he had, and he has not since recanted that statement. After Biden called his successor, Mike Pence, a “decent guy,” he was lambasted by the gay community, and a day later he trotted along behind his critics like a dog on a leash, saying that no one who believes as Pence does can be “decent.” (Yes, this is the “tolerance” of the Left: I believe differently than you, and you must consider me decent; you believe differently than me, thus you cannot be decent.)

In other words, Biden is just another politician who will turn whichever way the winds of fortune blow. Schultz isn’t afraid to give some credit to those with whom he disagrees overall, which is as rare on the Left as a Honus Wagner baseball card.

Schultz’s ideological similarity to Biden represents the problem for Democrats. Even before he’s announced his candidacy, Biden is the front-runner in the Democrat primary polls, by a wide margin. Assuming Biden declares his candidacy (he will) and wins the nomination (by no means a certainty at this point), and further assuming that Schultz does run as an Independent, they will split the Democrat vote, and Trump will win re-election handily. Sure, Schultz may pick up some Independent voters who value character over results, but aren’t willing to pull the D lever. (Biden will get some of those Independent voters too, the ones who are willing to vote Dem.)

The potential to divide the D vote and give Trump an easy win is why Schultz has been castigated by the Left for considering a third-party run. Why would anyone discourage a fellow American from pursuing public office? Because Democrats don’t want democracy, they want totalitarian control. So they’ll target anyone who, in their estimation, threatens their ability to gain or retain power.

Why not just encourage Schultz to run, and put up a candidate so compelling that he or she can beat both Schultz and Trump? Because there is no such candidate among the Democrat field. In fact, there’s a good chance that a Democrat nominee could finish third in 2020.

For his part, Schultz states that he does not believe he would split the Democrat vote and usher Trump into a second term (he’s either wrong, or he’s lying). Schultz will most certainly run if Sanders is the nominee, as the moderate Schultz offers an alternative to the bat-poo left Sanders. But he’s also likely to run if Biden is the nominee, despite their similarities; when asked during the Town Hall if he would vote for Biden, he said, “I plan to vote for myself,” a pretty blatant show of hand. In any event, he will have had to declare before the Dem nominee is chosen, so given the possibility of a far-left candidate like Sanders, he’s very likely to run.

In that event, the Curmudgeon will make a bold prediction. Thus far, in the wake of the Mueller Report, the cooler heads on the Left (a relative term that means their hair is only smoldering, not an inferno blazing like Dante’s Fifth Circle of Hell) are not calling for Trump’s impeachment, knowing that the case therefor is weak and that there is no GOP support. However, if Schultz declares, look for Dems to mount a full-on impeachment effort, because at that point they will know with certainty that their chances of unseating Trump in November 2020 are as doomed as a Hillary Clinton presidential bid.