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Across from the Howard Schultz event.
Advice from the big man himself. 
Whoooo! Reception is not good at the Moore and wifi is overloaded.
Some protest scenes:
Here's @kcexec, telling Howard Schultz to remember his history of presidential spoilers like Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, and Putin.
They're giving away copies of the So I share documentary, about how Schultz lost the city's basketball team.
There was one guy with a "Run, Howie, Run" sign, so naturally the media was all over him. Gotta interview both sides! #youdontactuallyhavetointerviewbothsides #thatsnotfairness #thatsjustdumb #dontfeedthetrolls
You might wind up seeing some of this event on TV. Just a hunch. Gut feeling.
And if you're wondering who comes to a free Howard Schultz reading on a Thursday night, I'd say the crowd is generally whiter, older, and has a higher income than the average Seattleite.
View from my seat right now:
When I saw the hashtag onstage, I honestly thought REI was sponsoring Schultz's presidential run.
(Just realized autocorrect changed "Sonicsgate" to "So I share" above. Sorry about that.)
People are asking if it feels like the crowd is full of undercover protesters. I am no expert, but it does not feel like that to me. It feels like a crowd of Howard Schultz fans, which is not a thing that I previously would have guessed was a thing.
"Man in the Mirror" is playing in the Moore. I wonder if Schultz's people chose the playlist.
Lights are going down. They're going to start on time, I think. Now Sade is playing, "By Your Side."
They're playing a video about what kind of country we want to live in. Howard Schultz is in a kitchen, talking about the people who want to divide us. "We are all Americans," says the guy who calls everyone un-American.
Host Monica Guzman says she wants to start a conversation about why he's doing what he's doing. Has some preselected audience questions.
Schultz is asked what's the path he sees to the presidency without reelecting Trump. He says he's here because of his love for America. Gets a nice round of applause.
Schultz says he sees "revenge politics" from "both sides." When he says he wants to run as a centrist independent, exactly one person in the audience applauds.
Schultz says 42 percent of the population is independent. (He's misreading the demographics, or they're being misread to him.)
Schultz is convinced that "millions of Republicans" would vote for a "third person."
Schultz says his goal is to make all fifty states matter in the election. There's a leap of faith in there that I'm not following.
Basically, the answer to "why" was "I'm special." Schultz says his people have been looking at the data with "real science." "Imagine for the first time since George Washington that an independent person could win." He gets applause for that line.
"I'm not a Messiah." --Howard Schultz
Schultz says the conversation around him has been "punitive" because people label him a billionaire.
"Now that I hear people criticizing anyone who's successful," he says, it annoys him. Success should be celebrated.
My God. It's identity politics for the super-rich. He's complaining about micro-aggressions against him for being a billionaire.
To people who criticize his campaign flirtation, Schultz asks the crowd if they're happy with the system as it is. Says he'll bring change.
We are a half-hour in and Howard Schultz has not mentioned a single policy.
If a Democrat wins in 2020, Schultz says he has "no confidence whatsoever" that they will end the "toxicity" of politics.
Schultz says he's "exhausted" by the president and "disgusted by the toxicity" of the system. Guzman says "why not just run as a Democrat," to huge applause.
Schultz says he thinks "progressive" solutions simply won't work. Schultz lists free health care (crowd applause) and free college (big applause) and for "everyone to have a government job." (Someone in the audience says "what?" to that.)
When Schultz says he doesn't know how we can pay for that, someone shouted "pay your taxes!" People applaud. He doesn't reply.
Schultz is demonstrating self-effacing humor talking about his #racetogether program. Says the program was courageous, but a failure.
Schultz says he wants to return to "aspirations" and "idealism." He has negative words for Trump's wall and Trump's tax cuts.
When Schultz says he opposed the corporate tax cuts, someone in the audience says "EVERY Democrat said that," and people applaud.
Guzman mentions the Sonics leaving Seattle and the room audibly shifts. Boos at Schultz.
We are 45 minutes in and Howard Schultz has not mentioned a single policy he wants to put forward.
Schultz says he wants to talk about the Sonics with the same "transparency and humility" he's brought to the rest of the discussion tonight.
The humility must have been transparent, because I didn't see it.
Schultz complains about the bad lease that the Sonics had. (Maybe the worst in professional sports, he says.) Says the mayor and the Council were no help and he was losing money.
Schultz says he wanted to sell the Sonics, but the lease was so bad he couldn't do it inside Seattle.
"I made a terrible mistake," Schultz says. He expected the city would change the lease for the new owner. They didn't.
"I'm responsible for what took place," Schultz says, and his lesson was he should have used his power and responsibility with "restraint."
Nearly an hour in, Howard Schultz has still not talked about a single policy he would enact as president.
I've covered multiple Newt Gingrich presidential rallies, and they were all more substantive than this Howard Schultz event.
Mitt Romney had more to say about how he would fix America in five minutes of any of his 2012 rallies than Howard Schultz has said in a week in the spotlight of an enthralled media.
Guzman asks Schultz about his terrible voting record.
Schultz says he has voted in every presidential election since he was 18. That's his answer.
Schultz says he wasn't engaged in local politics. Says he voted for Mayor Durkan.
How has he dealt with the negative reaction? "I'm not trying to win the Twitter primary," he says. Says he's "trying to win the hearts and minds of the American people." Says he won't let the "social media hate" impact him.
Schultz says if Mayor Bloomberg ran in 2016, "maybe Donald Trump would not be president."
We are almost an hour and fifteen minutes in and Howard Schultz has not put one policy forward that he would support as president.
No organized protesters at the Schultz event so far. I'm surprised and disappointed.
Schultz praises Microsoft for the 500 million they're putting toward housing in King County. Says corporations in America must "do more."
That's the end. Howard Schultz did not put forward one policy he would enact as president.
