For a number of years, Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz has displayed a sort of arrogance about what he, and sometimes his coffee company, can do to save the world. The efforts are not only inappropriate, they cannot succeed. Selling coffee cannot be married with transforming governments and the forces that shape them.

Schultz’s newest campaign is to save Washington from itself, and in the process save America from Washington. The Starbucks website carries a new message and a chance to sign a petition. It is so important that it sits next to a promotion for an Evolution Fresh juicery that will be opened in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. It reads:

Dear Friends,

I am grateful to all of you for the outpouring of support and ideas regarding how we can best solve the current crisis of leadership in which we are now embroiled.

What has become clear to me over these past few days — aside from the continued dysfunction we see from our elected leaders — is the sad and striking realization that the American people have no platform with which to voice their frustration with Washington and the current stalemate that threatens our nation. The fact that the government’s “We the People” initiative website has shut down due to a lack of funding says everything about the irresponsible and untenable situation our political leadership has created across America.

This is one area where we can help put our country back on the right track. Using our collective scale for good, this Friday Starbucks and others will distribute a petition (www.ComeTogetherPetition.com) asking Congress and the White House to:
•First, reopen our government to serve the people
•Second, pay our debts on time to avoid another financial crisis
•Third, pass a bipartisan and comprehensive long-term budget deal by the end of the year.

Starbucks will offer up its thousands of stores across the nation to give the millions of customers who come through our stores every week, and thousands of partners (employees) who serve them, an opportunity to have their voices heard by signing our petition. Please join us in doing what you – and your companies – can to give the American people the voice they currently lack, and are desperately crying out for. And in the process, you can help to restore faith and trust in our government through your civil words and deeds.

Sincerely,

Howard Schultz

Circulating the letter violates two rules about public corporation management. The first is that customers should not be asked to do more than the company has been built to do for them. Starbucks customers want coffee and not, in most cases, intrusive messages about the American government’s problems. People should not be asked to do more than inconveniently stand in long lines to get $3 cups of coffee.

The other rule is that, since shareholders own Starbucks, they should not be subject to the company being used as a political platform. General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) does not ask its customers to save the whales or ask the federal government to toughen air pollution laws. It sells cars and trucks, hopefully at a profit.

Schultz is fabulously rich and the founder of Starbucks. According to his view, that gives him special privileges. Among these are to promote juiceries and the task of getting Congress and the White House to sit down together and address America’s most vexing problems.

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