Friday politics: Is Howard Schultz a Democratic 'spoiler'?

Joni Balter, host of "Civic Cocktail" on the Seattle Channel, and C.R. Douglas, political analyst for Q13, tell KUOW's Angela King that there's still a lot of uncertainty about Howard Schultz's possible run for president.

Joni Balter: A lot of people do not want Howard Schultz to run as an independent, including — or maybe I should say especially —Washington Governor Jay Inslee. Democrats clearly feel this guy would be a spoiler, that he would harm the eventual Democratic nominee and boost the re-election of Donald Trump. So that's a problem there.

I also felt the announcement on "60 Minutes" itself was a kind of PR one-to-one. The whole rollout was way, way too controlled to seem genuine.

C.R. Douglas: The bid is a long shot for sure, given the poor history of independent candidacies. But what Schultz is banking on is that this political moment is different, that Donald Trump gives him a unique opportunity and that opportunity is twofold. First the hatred of Trump among Democrats is likely to cause them to overreact and nominate an extreme left candidate, making moderates in that party search for an alternative. And secondly the opposition to Trump among Republicans is going to be cause for them to look for an alternative.

So his theory is that there will be an unprecedented number of voters up for grabs in both parties this year that he can attract with a moderate message. We all complain about the two-party system but most of us play right along with it in the end. And that's going to be a hard habit for Schultz to break. It'll be expensive, but if ever there was a time for an independent candidacy to work, it's probably this one.

Angela King: Well, they haven't worked really in the past. Some people may say that he is going to be a spoiler in all of this.

Douglas: We're the only democracy that relies on two parties. Most places have three and four and five parties, so this idea that Democrats or Republicans have a right to be the only two parties is a misnomer for a lot of people. The third candidacy is only a spoiler if you believe that we should only have two parties.

King: He hasn't made up his mind yet, though. Do you think he's going to run?

Balter: He's going to test this out for about two or three months. A lot of this is about the book. Right now on Amazon he's at about No. 24, which could be a lot better, although it's been coming up -- it was 35 the other day. But this is more about getting a name for himself and maybe testing this idea of the extremes of both parties – there is room in there for somebody who has the idea that the parties aren't the only answer.

Douglas: I think it's 50/50. It's going to come down to polling. We'll know in the next couple weeks, the next couple months, whether he's polling equally from both parties. That'll be a big thing. If he's attracting mostly Democrats, that does just split the anti-Trump vote. And he will be accused of being a spoiler, and he says he will not do it.