Another Billionaire for President?

Another billionaire is offering to save the United States from its current political dysfunction.

It appears an occupational obsession that individuals, generally men, who have acquired great wealth in the business world are convinced they can lead us to some sort of nonpartisan nirvana.

The latest self-proclaimed wizard is Howard Schultz, the Brooklyn-born billionaire who built Starbucks into a worldwide dynamo.  He has announced consideration of a run for president in 2020 as an independent.

That should prompt most voters to immediately dismiss his candidacy as fantasy.  No independent candidate, i.e. an aspirant not the nominee of one of the two major parties, has ever won the presidency.  The last one to even receive electoral votes was George Wallace who racked up 46 in 1968, not enough to block Richard Nixon’s victory in the Electoral College. 

However, billionaires get a pass on rational thinking because of their apparent unlimited resources. Americans tend to be in awe of wealth even when they might question how it was accumulated.

It is easy to see how billionaires get the idea they should be in charge of the country.  Although they have acquired their wealth in an economy undergirded by a very friendly, even pandering political system, the conventional wisdom credits them with being rugged individualists.

Billionaires, and some self-styled billionaires, you may have one in mind, claim they bring important skills to the table.  They are problem solvers, consensus builders, pragmatist.  People will listen to them and respond accordingly.

And in the world of business that is normally true.  But in business CEOs operate in a well-defined space with well-defined rules.  The products and services they seek to deliver are targeted for an easily identifiable audience. Personnel needed to perform essential functions whether employees or contractors are under the ultimate control of the CEO.  Their job security and financial well-being depend upon his, or her, whim.

In the political world it is a very different story.  Yes, some personal attributes, like character, discipline and intellectual rigor are important in both settings, but the environment of America’s political arena is far more complex than that of a single company or even a large conglomerate.  It also defies attempts to rule by executive decree.

A US president shares power with the 537 members of the US Congress, much more assertive than the average corporate board member. Passage and funding of the president’s agenda requires congressional approval. Most of his executive staff must be approved by the legislative branch.

Sometimes senators and representatives may owe their election to a president, but generally, that is not the case. Their obligation to the president, even one of their own party, is tenuous.  Each is independently elected by his, or her, own constituency, unlike in a parliamentary system.    

In addition, a US president must operate with far greater transparency than that demanded of an American corporate leader. The media and special interest groups are not only free to assail any proposal or action the nation’s chief executive pursues, they view their constant carping as a sacred responsibility.   

The late presidential scholar Richard Neustadt wrote extensively about the modern American presidency. In his view the US president is not powerless, but there are formidable forces within government and within the political system who have more specific constituencies and consequently an independent set of responsibilities. A president’s task is to persuade those forces that what he “wants of them is what they ought to do for their sake and on their authority.”

Arguing that no billionaire nor successful businessman could perform ably as president is not reasonable, but he or she would have to recognize the different milieu as well as the likely difference in objectives. And therein lies the rub for a potential candidate from the business world in 2020.

In comments related to his candidacy, Schultz labeled himself as “socially liberal but fiscally conservative,” decrying extremes of both parties.  But then he compared Democratic support for universal healthcare with Trump’s demand for a wall on the Southern border. 

Political definition may be in influx today, but universal healthcare is no longer a radical idea. Most Americans, unless they run a drug company or a health insurance monopoly, think it’s a good idea.  After all, other developed countries have had it for decades.

Schultz also expressed concern about the persistent deficit and growth in the national debt, but he refused to state his position on tax increases.  This leaves the suspicion that spending cuts would be his answer to reducing the deficit and the debt, not raising taxes on people like him.

This would not be a very popular or credible position for a presidential candidate in 2020.  For Schultz it could be toxic.  In 2016 his last full year as Starbucks CEO Schultz’s compensation was more than $21.8 million. Using Starbucks 2018 median employee pay as reported, under Schultz the CEO-median employee pay ratio would have been at least 1,700 to 1.

Not a good platform for a presidential run in 2020.