Should the CEO of Starbucks be Our Next President?

Forums: Politics, Potus, Starbucks, 2016, Howard Schultz
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He is being encouraged to run, I think mostly by people who see Hillary melting down AGAIN and see the people supporting protest candidates such as Sanders and Trump...the argument is that Schultz could actually win given the climate, so this is worth his time. Plus he has a real interest in politics, and there is reason to think he might be good at it.

I dont think he will do it, but I would almost certainly vote for him if he did.

What say you?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 4,685 • Replies: 11

[+3] - engineer - 08/04/2015That sounds like the argument to elect Trump. I don't doubt Schultz is a good guy, but saying he has a good grasp of international politics because his company operates internationally is a...

Quote:

Howard Schultz may know how to run a business, but when it comes to a political campaign, KIRO Radio's Ron Upshaw says he isn't up to the task.

There's been somewhat of a groundswell for Schultz to consider running for president, Ron points out. Hillary Clinton is losing momentum and it looks unlikely that Joe Biden will run.

"People are looking around and asking, who is the Barrack Obama of 2016?" Ron said.

Encouragement for Schultz to run for office surged recently with reports of his friends urging him to run.

But could someone who gave up on the Seattle SuperSonics have what it takes to be President of the United States? Ron thinks not.

Schultz might be able to rule Starbucks with an iron fist, turning the company around even. However, it didn't seem like the CEO of Starbucks, and former owner of the Sonics, could handle push-back from basketball players.

"He would butt heads," Ron explained. "Players like Gary Payton wouldn't listen to him. Publicly, it seemed as though Schultz would have it his way, or no way at all."

"If [Schultz] had a whole party of opposition ... It would be his undoing," Ron added.

http://mynorthwest.com/108/2791983/Howard-Schultz-couldnt-handle-pressure-of-running-for-office

I dont at the moment know what happened with his Sonics ownership and will look into it, be Seattle is famously a fair weather sports town, people dont support the teams unless they are doing well so making money is a slog. Also everyone is in agreement that the economics of Key Arena dont work and that it is very hard to get a stadium built in this town. Also I take note of how we have not been able to replace the Sonics once they moved. Not owning the Sonics could very well have been a smart business move, so I am not willing to take at face value claims that not likeing labor was the problem. Howard Schultz does not like labor and has problems working with labor?? Maybe, but that is very hard to believe, I need to see evidence.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I dont think he will do it, but I would almost certainly vote for him if he did.

Based on what? What are his political positions? My Internet searches showed some passion around Washington gridlock and race relations but no real actions. I'm not sure how you can say you would "almost certainly" vote for someone who has never held office and whose positions are not proven by actions, but maybe you know something I don't.

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@engineer,

Small more policy positions dont matter to me right now because this nation and our political system are such a mess. A vote for Howard (as he is known with in Starbucks) would be almost exactly like a vote for Dwight D. Eisenhower was, a vote for man of quality that we trust to help get us out of a jam, and they can get back to us later on what the plan is going to be.

Howard has a good grasp of the international because his company operates internationally, he has a good grasp of what it takes to be successful in this international economy which is a skill that America desperately needs right now, he has a reputation for fairness and being able to spot troubles and trends, despite the claims about the Sonics he has a reputation for being able to work with others, and he has a record and service and he encourages others to serve....just to name a few reasons why he is the right man for the job.

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@hawkeye10,

That sounds like the argument to elect Trump.

I don't doubt Schultz is a good guy, but saying he has a good grasp of international politics because his company operates internationally is a pretty big miss. The skill set required to procure and sell internationally are completely different that what is required to combat international terrorism or negotiate peace and trade deals. Going from a business environment where he listens to his staff and then makes the call, expecting them to take action in line with his opinion is completely different from working with politicians in your own party with slightly different agendas and those from the other party with radically different goals.

He might be a great politician, but he is a complete unknown. He could win my vote, but he certainly doesn't have it based on "he's a good guy and he can run a company".

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@engineer,

Quote:

That sounds like the argument to elect Trump.

I dont think that the people who like Trump think that he would be good, they dont give a **** if he would be good, they are protesting. . My argument for Schultz is that he is the best quality person available, and he might be good at this. There is a solid practice in sports about always taking the best athlete, and worry about the skill set and the working of the team later...this I think is a smart way to go when the quality of Washington and the people who run it is so bad.

Quote:

He might be a great politician, but he is a complete unknown. He could win my vote, but he certainly doesn't have it based on "he's a good guy and he can run a company".

If you think that Starbucks is just a company you have not been paying attention. Starbucks is a set of values and a way of doing business as much or more than it is a company.

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@engineer,

Engineer: This is something like the fourth time in a row that you have aggressively challenged my position. It is like you are looking for places to disagree with me. Great, I love a challenge to my ideas because my goal here is to get better ideas. But I wonder if you are trying to prove that you are not like me. If so you are giving the A2K mob too much power, and I before recently thought that you are better than to do this. Now I am not so sure.

Edit: if you think that you need to be popular here, that you need to conform to the groupthink so that you will be able to talk to people here, then you should evaluate whether these people are of high enough quality to be worth the effort. And you need to remember that you need to look yourself in the mirror in the morning.

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@hawkeye10,

I'm sorry you feel that way. I assure you that I have no need to differentiate myself from anyone on A2K. My positions are my own. We rarely agree, but I thought we generally disagree agreeably and have taken opposite positions on numerous occasions. On this one, I'm surprised you would "probably vote" for a candidate without understanding his position on immigration, healthcare, taxes, abortion, equal rights, international affairs, the "war on terror", etc. Maybe you do know those positions and you can educate me. No way I'm going to blindly support a good guy just because he is an "outsider".

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Funny that I found this old thread given the noise Howard Schultz is making about running for President. I heard an interview with him on NPR and he sounded pretty politically naive. Position wise, he sounded like Jeb Bush (no new taxes, grow our way out of the deficit, Democrats are just too liberal). I guess some Democrats were aggravated by Schultz's talk of running, but 538.com did some analysis and found that the people who might support Schultz (fiscal conservatives, social liberals) actually went for Trump last election cycle. Of course we don't have Hawkeye to champion Schultz anymore, so is there anyone else out there who wants to make his case?

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@engineer,

He is another billionaire. Surely the last billionaire we elected has shown us he has no concept of the serfdom of most citizens. I can just hear him declaring let them drink coffee from the Whitehouse steps just as Trump talks up his Trump towers.

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Saw Schultz's CNN town hall and it was terrible. This guy has no ideas. I also saw this interesting graph on where the population sits and how they voted in 2016. The box Schultz says he wants to appeal to in the lower right hand box - the one with very few people in it.

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/boepUuCyv8mKwuow3UMIE7jqcA4=/0x0:710x704/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:710x704):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13756373/16_left_vs_right_chart_1.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.png

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@engineer,

So in one of the weirder happenings of this young political season, Howard Schultz’s campaign adviser walked off a podcast that he hosts because he couldn't handle hard Schultz questions. Steve Schmidt is a never Trumper who hosts the "Words Matter" center right political podcast. His fellow hosts interviewed him about Schultz and they were throwing in fairly hard hitting questions. In the end, Schmidt stormed off mid-interview. This podcast is targeted right at the demographic that Schultz wants to appeal to and he can't even bring them over. I think Schultz is done. I do wish Hawkeye was still around to comment since this was his thread.

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Should the CEO of Starbucks be Our Next President?

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