Schultz brews up a bold challenge to the political system

But, by all means, let's brush all that aside and hold Schultz to a different and impossibly high standard.

The global CEO with the self-made success story responded to that gotcha question with a pretty good answer.

"I have a long history of recognizing [that] I'm not the smartest person in the room, that in order to make great decisions about complex problems, I have to recruit and attract people who are smarter than me and more experienced, more skilled," he said.

In truth, the beef that those on the left have with Schultz is not about his lack of experience or familiar rhetoric about a rich guy wanting to buy some high elective office. It has to do with math. The concern is that Schultz will -- as Pelley put it -- "siphon off" just enough votes from whoever becomes the Democratic nominee that he'll wind up throwing the election to Donald Trump.

Can you imagine if that happened? We'd go from hearing about how the Russians elected Trump the first time to how Schultz got him re-elected.

Notice who's missing from both explanations. That's right. The Democratic nominee for president.

In most of the obituaries that came out after the 2016 election -- including the one that she wrote herself -- Hillary Clinton got a pass. Here Democrats had managed to find the one person in America who could actually lose to Donald Trump, no small accomplishment. Clinton did everything wrong, ran a terrible campaign, came across as untrustworthy and dishonest and even ignored the expert advice of her husband -- who had won two presidential elections. And yet, according to some, she played no role in her defeat.

Now Democrats are gearing up to do it again. With seven Democratic politicians already having declared that they're running for president, and more expected to enter the race in the weeks to come, the party is already boasting about how it has an embarrassment of riches.

Maybe so. But the way the folks on the left are attacking Schultz is just a plain old embarrassment.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.