Considering that there’s a representative for a reality television star to be picked out to the highest office in the nation, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when followers and friends of TV icons like Oprah Winfrey start endorsing her as a potential candidate in the 2020 election.
Apparently, Winfrey has said countless times that she doesn’t have plans of running except if it’s running as fast as possible so she can get away from politics. But not everyone in the private sector shares the same perspective as the Queen of all Media. Some view running against Donald Trump is both wildly entertaining and of course, it makes great sense. Heading the list is businessman and investor Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
Cuban has dropped clues for a while about the possibility of running. Like Trump, his net worth is billions and definitely has the strength to set the financial structure to get the process started. In an interview with the New York Daily News early this week, Cuban said he hasn’t decided past the conceptual phase. But he didn’t instantaneously dismiss a run, either. For him to create a political action committee, it would take the “exact right set of circumstances,” according to Cuban. “I haven’t decided anything yet. We’ll see what happens. It all comes down to how things play out. It’s not something I feel like I have to do,” Cuban said.
Cuban also said he would run as an independent, something many private citizens, like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, have done in the previous elections. After a failed attempt to get the Democratic nomination back in 2016, Bernie Sanders raced on the third line, too.
“If you have a message that people want to hear and will grab onto, it doesn’t matter if you’re an independent or in one of the two main parties,” Cuban said. One thing is certain: Mark Cuban’s national profile is a far cry than most of the candidates in the Democratic party who have announced their desire to run.
Cuban is one of the NBA’s most brilliant owners, merely always in the center of league scrums. He is popular for his unfavorable judgment of officials and has been fined many times by the league for saying terrible things he shouldn’t have said. Like Trump, who earned fame by hosting “The Apprentice,” Cuban is one of the stars of TV series “Shark Tank”, a business show in which entrepreneurs make presentations for new business to a team of business investors. And if name recognition is regarded as a crucial first step in a political career, Cuban already established a reputed brand.
He told the Daily News he’s not happy with how major political parties try to attract to voters during the early stage of the campaign period. “It’s very difficult to show leadership in a situation like that because you can’t truly lead if you have to find an equilibrium between being a true leader for the people of your country vs. getting elected in your primary,” Cuban said. “You’ve got to get right to the heart of the matter and get to the details first. Sort of like a business plan. That way every voter can see them,” he added.
As Trump did during his victorious run in the 2016 presidential race, Cuban would need to build an appealing platform especially to those who are cynical of candidates that have zero political background. More so, he needs to persuade voters that managing a multi-million dollar business is one qualification of running the United States.
If there’s one thing that might (already) be working against Cuban is the scandal that rocked the Mavericks last year. There were complaints of workplace misbehaviour and sexual harassment he felt obligated to apologize for. Cuban told ESPN he was sorry for not recognizing it right away. “In hindsight, it was staring me right in the face and I missed it.”
Should he decide to run, he has to make his decision in no time. Running for president of America is way more complicated than keeping an NBA franchise in circulation. There are people to employ, platforms to plan, and money to raise. “There’s a lot of uncertainty with what’s going on with the Mueller report, there’s a lot of things that have to be figured out before we know how 2020 is going to play out,” Cuban said. Cuban is no stranger on this concept. He’s been having it around in his thoughts for almost two years.
Back in 2017, Cuban said that he wouldn’t prioritize running on his list of probabilities. “I’m a big believer that you don’t just (run for president) to try to pretend to be a politician. You have to have solutions, and I’m working on some projects that if I think they can turn into solutions, then yeah, I’ll do it. If I don’t think I have the right answers, then I won’t.”