Howard Schultz repeatedly told a Seattle audience Thursday night that he was speaking with "deep sense of humility," but went on to depict himself as a man who could get elected President as an independent "for the first time since George Washington."

The former CEO of Starbucks waived aside awful experiences of previous independents seeking the White House, saying what caused them to fail "does not apply to the time we are living in right now."

"If I am going to proceed, I have to believe I have a good chance of winning," said Schultz.

Schultz has had a rocky cross-country roll out of his possible presidential bid.

"We expected there was going to be a negative reaction," he said. "We have gotten it." But extensive, meticulous preparation is evident in how he is presenting himself to the American people.

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Across from the Moore Theater, in an underwhelming demonstration, State Democratic Chair Tina Podlodowsi said: "I don't think the state will vote for him. Ever."

King County Executive Dow Constantine predicted that Schultz will face impossible odds if he gets into the 2020 race, and then have to face himself as the person who split the vote and reelected Donald Trump.

But Schultz is possessed of vast self-confidence. He constructed a scenario (not supported by polls) of millions of Republicans looking for an alternative to Trump, but likely to vote for him if faced with the choice of a "far left progressive Democrat."

"Millions of Republicans will vote for a third person," Schultz predicted.

Hawking a new autobiography, "From the Ground Up", Schultz is taking possession of the American dream, depicting himself as a guy who grew up in public housing, saw his father fall on a sheet of ice and get laid off and watched Jewish Family Services bring food to his family's apartment.

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"I watched the fracturing of the American dream," he said.

The experience of his boyhood, as Schultz tells it, made him a benevolent corporate oligarch at Starbucks, out to do well but also do good.

He went back, again and again, to providing health care to Starbucks employees, only to claim that the "government paid health care" proposed by Democrats would cost the U.S. Treasury $32 trillion.

Why not run as a Democrat? "I don't believe there is any room for a person in my position to get the nomination," he said.

Schultz is capable of extending frontiers of self-serving argument, notably is discussing the 2006 sale of the Seattle SuperSonics to new owners who moved the NBA team to Oklahoma City.

To hear Schultz tell it, he was the largest shareholder but not the majority owner. The city of Seattle refused to renegotiate a grossly unfair lease. The team was losing money. Owners were getting a "capital call" to invest more to pay the players. The team was not selling out.

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He rejected a Northern California buyer who wanted to move the team to San Jose. He sought a local owner. The team was sold to Oklahoma City owners on the hope that they would make City Hall see reason.

Of the consequences, Schultz borrowed almost word-for-word ex-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's apology for Vietnam in explaining the Sonics' move: "I was just crushed that I made a terrible, terrible mistake."

The Town Hall Seattle audience applauded politely. It gave him a sitting ovation when done.

Schultz is not going to be sitting. He plans to travel the country in coming months, and make a final decision on whether to run as an independent.

He repeated a line from Wednesday night in Tempe, Arizona: "I am not going to do anything to reelect Donald Trump. I am not a spoiler."

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The gentle Q and A session revealed nothing of what Schultz would actually do if elected in 2020. "Why should we accept a broken system?" he asked. But he did not say how he would fix it, only that Washington, D.C., politicians would be so shocked if he wins that they would have to work together.

Howard Schultz is anything but humble, not when he claims the American dream as his own.

In the words of the billionaire who launched his coffee empire from Seattle, "The promise of the country is that you can have access to the American dream. I am living proof of that."