The Democrats-- And The Country-- Cry Out For A Champion... It's Not The Starbucks Guy, No Matter How Many P.R. People He Hires

Howard Schultz, left of Trump... right of the Democratic Party

If there’s one thing that people seem to think Trump proved is that virtually anyone can run for president. I suspect, though, that once he’d finally driven out of office, that isn’t going to be a consensus. But in 2020 several ambitious but questionably-qualified candidates will give it a go— unaccomplished congressmen, freshmen senators who have never done a thing but run their mouths, businessmen galore, self-entitled billionaires, cultural celebrities in the same way Trump was…

It’s hardly news that billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-Independent-Democrat— an founding member of the Mike Bloomberg Should Be President Party— intends to run (as a conservative Democrat). Nor is it news that Howard Schultz, the Starbucks guy, also thinks what the country needs after Trump is another billionaire with no political experience, namely Howard Schultz. NBC News reported that he’s been putting together an elite team to help him get the Democratic Party nomination. Political p.r. wiz Steve Schmidt’s name has been floated for months as a Schultz team honcho. He’s recently quit the Republican Party, made a name for himself among Democrats as an entertaining Trump-bashing commentator of MSNBC and quit his p.r. firm.

Schultz’s next step is “a civic-minded” book— From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America— that his p.r. team will help him launch as a the first step in his campaign. No one knows who wrote it.

Schultz is one of the many names widely considered as a possible candidate to take on Trump in two years. In an interview with CNBC earlier this year, Schultz left the door open to a run. With experience mainly in the business world but not the political arena, Schultz would likely need experienced political operators on his side if he were to dive into presidential politics. Schmidt fits that bill.

Schmidt got to know Schultz through Edelman's partnership with Starbucks. The two have kept in touch since Schultz left Starbucks earlier this year, people familiar with the relationship have said. Schmidt has continued to do private consulting work for Schultz on a variety of issues, including guiding him ahead of his upcoming book tour.

In October, Schultz hired Cheryl Cook, a longtime executive vice president at Edelman, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. She will be representing Schultz up until and throughout his book tour, which is expected to start in February in New York City, these people said. Cook worked at the PR firm for more than a decade and got to know Schultz directly when Starbucks was one of her clients.

…Another close advisor recruited by Schultz is Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who worked with the former Starbucks executive throughout his tenure at the company, according to a person familiar with the relationship. He joined Starbucks in 2015 to help the company work on social issues, and he followed Schultz out of Starbucks after serving as a senior vice president. He also co-authored the book For the Love of Country with Schultz. Prior to his stint at Starbucks, Chandrasekaran was a senior correspondent at the Washington Post.

People close to Schultz describe Chandrasekaran as one of his closest confidants and say he's positioned to be a pivotal voice when the coffee executive decides whether he will run for office.

…Schultz, a resident in the state of Washington, has also not met with officials from the state Democratic Party.

For his part, the former Starbucks chairman has been critical of the party in the past.

In an interview with CNBC in June, Schultz went on the offensive and said Democrats need to be careful with how far they veer to the left.

"It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left," Schultz said. "I say to myself, 'How are we going to pay for these things,' in terms of things like single payer [and] people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a job. I don't think that's realistic."

That alone shows how utterly unqualified he is— like Trump— to jump from the business world to the political world, especially as a Democrat. Maybe he should audit a Stephanie Kelton economics class at Stony Brook on Long Island before he decides to run for office, let alone president. Or, if mainstream Democratic ideas seem too far left for him, perhaps he can start a third party— the Eisenhower Republican Party, which could combine mainstream Republicans— disgusted with Trump’s cult of personality— with the ascendant Republican wing of the Democratic Party (the Wall Street-financed New Dems and Blue Dogs). Let's see how Kyle Kulinski explained what Howard Schultz is all about-- and unqualified to head the Democratic Party... let alone the country.