Every presidential election cycle, voters get teased by potential third-party or independent candidates, and reliably every time this happens the nation’s partisans gasp in horror. They shout “spoiler” and fall back on myths about independent candidates who supposedly ruined things for their candidate — and the treatment of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz will be no different.
The famed businessman revealed his serious intention to run for president in 2020 on “60 Minutes” this past weekend, and now the media is abuzz, the knives are out, and futile Starbucks boycotts are in their planning stages. Yet this outrage is baseless: There’s no such thing as a spoiler candidate. In a nation of 325 million people, the only people spoiling anything are Democratic and Republican candidates who pander to their base and expect everyone else to simply fall in line.
