Battle of the Billionaires?

Democrats are bullish on their chances of beating President Trump in 2020. If his approval ratings remain below the 46 percent of the vote that carried him to victory in 2016, they think they can win.

Some have also been counting on an anti-Trump candidate from the right running a third-party effort. They note that libertarian Gary Johnson and independent Evan McMullin won a total of 3.8 percent of the vote in 2016, much of it from voters who might otherwise have voted for a Republican.

But suddenly 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.

“We’re living at a most fragile time,” the 65-year-old Schultz told CBS. “Not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president, but the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what’s necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics.”

Schultz is apparently quite serious and has already hired Steve Schmidt, the 2008 campaign manager for the late John McCain, whose insurgent campaign captured the Republican nomination in 2008.