John Fund of National Review Online sees a potential for multiple big-bucks candidates in the next presidential race.
[S]uddenly Democrats are facing their own possible third-party headache. Lifetime Democratic billionaire Howard Schultz, the founder of the ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks, has told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he’s close to launching a self-funded presidential run in 2020 — and that he will run as an independent. …
… Democrats reacted to the Schultz news the way Dracula would recoil from a cross. “If he did run . . . it would provide Trump with his best hope for getting reelected,” former Obama cabinet officer and 2020 presidential candidate Julián Castro told CNN. Neera Tanden, a former top adviser to Hillary Clinton, tweeted an acidic message: “Vanity projects that help destroy democracy are disgusting.” …
… But what should concern Democrats the most is Schultz’s motivation for running as an independent: The modern Democratic party has moved so far to the left that even a progressive businessman such as Schultz, who checks all the boxes on liberal social issues, doesn’t think he has a home in the Democratic party. “I will say that it concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic party are going so far to the left, and I ask myself ‘How are we going to pay for all these things?’ in terms of things like single-payer or people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a job,” he told CNBC last June. …
… If Schultz decides to run as an independent, it will be a bold break from the decision made by Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York and a fellow billionaire. Bloomberg gave serious thought to an independent bid in both 2008 and 2016 before ultimately deciding against it. (If Bloomberg runs in 2020, it will be as a Democrat.)