Across the pond

It all looks very cosy. Michael Bloomberg, billionaire businessman and Mayor of New York, introducing Barack Obama, would-be President of the US of A. But in the speech that followed on the US economy Obama pledged himself to a solution, which sounds very much like Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a combination of pumping money into the economy to help the victims of the US housing crisis and tougher regulations on the financial community, to reduce the risk of something the sub-prime crisis happening again.

The encounter prompted the sleuths at CNN to put out a story speculating that Bloomberg might be a candidate for for Vice-President on the Obama ticket. The Washington Post (to whom thanks for the pic above) was more sceptical. They pointed out that Bloomberg was not in favour of regulation of the business community.

But the meeting does mean something as does the warmth of the encounter. In the last few weeks both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have been wooing Bloomberg. And the least that can be said is that Bloomberg has not yet pledged his troth to either of them.

So what Bloomberg is up to is precisely what he said in his speech last February, when he declared that he definitely was not standing for the Presidency himself, but he would be studying the proposals of all the candidates before deciding who to support. He must now be relishing the result of his lonely hearts style ad. Like some nubile babe who puts her pic on the internet in her quest for a rich husband, he is being courted by three most eligible suitors.

Back in February I wrote here that, despite his announcment, he might change his mind, particularly if the Republicans were not unified behind one strong candidate. The Draft Bloomberg campaign was still hopeful then that he would stand. Just now when I checked draftbloomberg.com was off the air. So probably they have now given up on getting their man the top job.

The London Times is also floating the idea of an Obama/Bloomberg ticket. In their report of Obama’s economic speech, their chief American correspondent, Gerald Baker, noted that Obama was still being bruised by the re-circulation of his pastor’s virulent anti-semitic comments. Bloomberg on the ticket would help Obama get the Jewish vote, Baker opined.

I don’t rule out the possibility of Bloomberg taking some role on an Obama ticket, but the first priority for Obama is to get the votes and active working support of the Clinton team. That still seems a long way off.

Which brings me to the second part of my questioning headline. What is Rupert Murdoch up to? In another story in the London Times today, Baker deals with Hillary Clinton’s mistake in reporting she had landed in Bosnia in the midst of sniper fire. The Times headline, ‘Hillary Clinton; fibber in chief” accuarately reflects the tone of the article. In it Baker dredges up an old lie she told some years ago. She claimed then that her parents had named her after Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest. In fact she was born five years before anyone had heard of Sir Edmund Hillary, apart from a small number of New Zealand mountineers.

Baker’s story is a hatchet job par excellence. And if one believes that journalists on The Times do not knowingly go against their master’s voice, then the story is a clear message from Rupert to Hillary to give up on climbing the biggest mountain of her career.

Throughout this campaign The Times has mostly reported favourably on Obama. And I don’t think that is because Murdoch thinks that Obama would be an easier candidate for the Republicans to beat. But The Times gave very high praise indeed for McCain’s views on the Iraq war on his recent visit to London. Murdoch warms to his measured hawkishness and dislikes the dove-like noises made by Obama and Hillary Clinton.

So at this stage of the game it is apparent that both these powerful businessmen are keeping their powder dry. But it is equally clear that they both think Obama might be a good thing for America in its present troubled state.

Small wonder, with friends like these, that the poor white vaters don’t warm to Obama.