I agree with you about all the ways Schultz is unappealing. But I don’t think it’s that hard to conceive of a situation in which the single most popular candidate is unable to win the primary in either party. Think Colin Powell in the 1990s. His pro-choice stance is a dealbreaker for hardcore conservatives; his military background and support for low taxes won’t fly with Democrats. But I bet he would have had a good shot as an independent, if he had run in say 2000.
Check the 538 article linked above. Certain People are always calling for a “socially liberal, fiscally conservative centrist independent” to break the two-party duopoly. Problem is that only like 15% of Americans are both socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
Which candidate do you think those 15% supported in the last (Presidential) election?
Trump. It says so in the article. Did you not read it? I mean, the headline itself says:
Looks like Shultz isn’t quite brain dead.
Intent on not aiding Trump, Schultz will take 3-4 months to decide on run
he’s doing a town hall on CNN next week
God CNN sucks. There are probably a dozen or more declared and soon-to-declare candidates with a much greater likelihood of becoming President than Shultz. But because he’s a billionaire, he gets special treatment. Not surprising, but well worth criticizing.
In 2015 and 2016 Trump was on CNN more than Law and Order reruns on other channels. I guess they figured pretty quick he was boosting up the ratings. This year I figure they will do other candidates too at some point.
Yes. Possibly their calculation is ‘we need Schultz to be seen as a viable 3rd-party candidate because that will increase the chances that the 2020 election will be a squeaker—and we need that for our ratings.’
There are CNN reporters that I think highly of. But I definitely do NOT think highly of the CNN decision-makers, who are at least partially responsible (due to that massive coverage BD mentioned) for saddling us with Trump.
if he is such a bad candidate then more exposure of him would hurt him right? Then again that did not work with Trump. 
So true.
But Trump had the power of racism–specifically, 25-30 million white-supremacists who’d never before gotten so close to having a President of their own–behind him.
Schultz, so far, has…the number of voters who are also billionaires, and who resonate to his message of ‘balance the budget on the backs of Social Security and Medicare recipients and leave us to enjoy our yachts and $75 ice cubes.’
How many could that be? Granted, those people can buy the votes of stupid poorer people with lavish spending on social media messaging, but…still. It’s not like having the white supremacists behind you.
about 50% of GOP voters are white supremacists? that seems way over the top . and if there are that many how on Earth did Obama get elected twice?
I think your math is wrong if you think 50% of Republicans being racist would have stopped Obama from being elected.
so where is the evidence 50% of Trump voters are white supremacists? Like anybody who runs people vote for the guy based on many issues - supreme court, abortion, taxes, gun control, immigration, and so on.
That discussion has been done in many threads before; I’d suggest we not hijack this one to do it over again.
just to be clear I view people like the KKK to be white supremacists. That goes way beyond just being a racist. I don’t see 30 million people being the same as a KKK member.
I agree. The proposition ‘50% of Trump voters are white supremacists’ is discussed elsewhere; it’s not really relevant to Howard Schultz’s chances. I was pointing out that he probably does not have the support of those people, who will surely stick with Trump. The relevance was that Schultz’s natural constituency—billionaires—is smaller than Trump’s natural constituency.
About those $75 ice cubes. The waters of Lake Baikal are the last reserves of completely pure fresh water on the planet. Ice cubes must be formed individually and wrapped in thermic insulation, then attached to the foot of a Siberian sparrow. Do you know the carrying capacity of a Siberian sparrow? I daresay you do not!
only billionaires would be the primary Schultz voters? I think I read that there are about 400 billionaires in the US. Given that number then Schultz would set a record for having the smallest ever base of support.
The fundamental currency of the marketplace of ideas is not truth. It is not accuracy. It’s not insight. It’s attention. And because the media often cannot or will not state things plainly, and has to give the illusion of balance even when none is there, they pretty much cannot give someone a negative enough slant to where that attention will actually hurt the candidate. The attention grants them legitimacy in a way.