Former Governor Hickenlooper (shown) cannot even call himself a capitalist — and yet he is considered a “moderate”?
It appears that former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper wants to have it both ways — he wants to be seen as the “centrist” in the Democratic field of presidential candidates that he placed himself in, and yet he is hesitant to call himself a “capitalist” in a campaign season in which most of the Democratic Party candidates are wrapping themselves in the socialist banner.
On Friday, the day after announcing his candidacy for president, Hickenlooper went on the Morning Joe program, and repeatedly avoided calling himself a capitalist. Joe Scarborough is the host of the MSNBC program, and a former Republican member of Congress.
Perhaps Hickenlooper expected softball questions from the MSNBC host and frequent critic of President Donald Trump. But when Scarborough asked Hickenlooper about the Democratic Party drift toward socialism, the former Colorado governor attempted to duck the issue: “Most Democrats don’t care about the labels.”
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But Scarborough persisted, asking, “Well, would you call yourself a proud capitalist?”
Laughing awkwardly, Hickenlooper said, “Oh I don’t know, you know again, the labels, I’m not sure any of them fit, but I do believe that ability to look at, you know, climate change, and figure out how are we really gonna create a sense of urgency and get people together.”
Then, Scarborough asked, “Let me ask you, I’ll just break it down even more. Do you consider yourself a capitalist?”
“Well again, the labels,” Hickenlooper responded. “I’m a small business person, so that part of the system that you would call capitalist, I get it, I understand it, uh, I worked very hard.”
Finally, Hickenlooper said, “Well, I think, I don’t look at myself with a label, and I certainly think that small business is part of the solution. I think right now the way capitalism is working in the United States, it’s not doing what it once did, it is really not providing security and opportunity for the middle class and for poor people.”
In one sense, as the late Milton Friedman often pointed out, even socialist and communist countries are “capitalist,” in that everyone uses capital. The issue is whether the capital is owned by the government, or whether it is owned privately. But Hickenlooper simply avoided the question, and the opportunity to defend free enterprise. It was reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s inability to explain the difference between a socialist and a Democrat during her contest with Bernie Sanders.
Hickenlooper is expected to stake out a position as the “moderate” or “centrist” in a Democratic Party field which seems determined to run far to the Left. In December, he said, “I think there’s a point where someone like me — I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a problem solver, I’ve been good at bringing people together that historically have been antagonistic. Maybe the country needs someone that can bring the divided parts of the country and the divided constituencies back together.”
Former Democratic National Committee CEO Mike Dino recently promoted the idea that Hickenlooper was a moderate. “Maybe he’ll get people from both ends of the spectrum to say he feels like the right cup of porridge.”
While Hickenlooper has a rather low name recognition right now, he should not be underestimated in a field of better-known Democrats. In fact, it would not be surprising for him to become a serious contender for the Democratic Party nomination, as he appears to being groomed for the presidency by globalist elites.
Last year, Hickenlooper was one of 131 invited to attend the super-secretive Bilderberger Group, which held its annual meeting in Turin, Italy. The group was formed in 1954, and some of the biggest movers and shakers in world politics meet to discuss and shape issues of interest to the globalist-minded attendees.
When Bill Clinton was still a fairly obscure governor of the small state of Arkansas, he received his invitation to attend in 1991. The next year he surprised the “experts,” when he defeated another former attendee, George Herbert Walker Bush. In 1964 and again in 1966, Congressman Gerald Ford attended the Bilderberg get-together.
Perhaps all of this led Hickenlooper to expect softball questions from Scarborough, who is married to the daughter of the prominent globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski (who helped David Rockefeller groom an obscure governor from Georgia — Jimmy Carter — before he “came out of nowhere” to capture the White House in 1976).
Like Carter and Clinton, Hickenlooper can be expected to convey a more moderate image (not a high bar, considering the present field of socialist Democrats running for president). Politico compared his centrist image to that of Bill Clinton, who won in 1992 promising a “third way.” But that “moderate” image is hardly deserved.
For example, while Hickenlooper once had what was described as a “cordial relationship” with the National Rifle Association, he has signed some of the strictest gun-control measures of any state. In 2013, Governor Hickenlooper signed a bill to limit the capacity of magazines bought, sold, or transferred in Colorado to 15 rounds. Another bill required background checks for any firearm transferred within the state, and yet another bill which placed a tax on firearm transfers.
He is also an opponent of the death penalty. And, as his interview with Morning Joe revealed, he has bought into the idea of combatting supposed global warming with government restrictions on the economy — restrictions that would make a mockery of “free” enterprise.
We can only guess what his “education” at last year’s Bilderberg meeting did for him in the field of foreign policy and globalism. What we can safely say is that he was not told that America needs to keep its national sovereignty.
Photo of John Hickenlooper: AP Images
