Howard Schultz, the executive chairman of Starbucks, has stepped down and may be running for president.

But Schultz has always been political, and his decision to step down from his beloved Starbucks will only fuel questions about a presidential run. He told the Times, “For some time now, I have been deeply concerned about our country—the growing division at home and our standing in the world.” When asked directly if would run for president, he said, “One of the things I want to do in my next chapter is to figure out if there is a role I can play in giving back. I’m not exactly sure what that means yet.”

There was speculation that Schultz would run for office last election cycle, but he tamped down rumors with an op-ed that stated, “Despite the encouragement of others, I have no intention of entering the presidential fray.”…

I asked him outright if he would run for office. “I don’t have any plans to do that,” Schultz told me. As I wrote at the time, that amounts to something less than a no. A politician couldn’t have said it better.

This news will excite literally dozens of people. If that many.

Bloomberg nearly got into the race in 2016. Tom Steyer is nosing around it. Now Howard Schultz.

The obvious question is who is their base exactly? Steyer at least figured out that if he yells about Trump, he’ll get attention. Schultz is Bloomberg all over again. And it gets worse.

Bloomberg might have had a shot by running on his business record. But the White House already has a billionaire businessman. The economy is doing quite well. So what’s Schultz’s pitch beyond the boilerplate stuff that Democrats want?

There isn’t one.

Trump found a base. None of the billionaires eyeing the job seem to have figured that out. Steyer’s rants about Trump play well to the base, but that’s a crowded field. Trump took issues that few presidential candidates were paying attention to. And Schultz will recite sonorous cliches about how Trump is fracturing America.

Make that to go.