Murdoch begins ‘draft Bloomberg’ movement as market uncertainty rises

The rumblings are beginning.

Just as the Democratic party considers drafting a 2016 challenger into take on a floundering Hillary Clinton, GOP voices are speaking up about shaking up their primary race as well.

Conservative stalwarts Bill Kristol is leaving the door open for an “October surprise,” even suggesting the possibility that a business person, such as a “saner and sounder” version of Donald Trump, could emerge.

Now enter a man who knows a thing or two of drumming up attention (and selling papers) - Rupert Murdoch. Just as massive stock drop has many investors eyeing the financial headlines, the media mogul is stirring the pot, trying to draft fellow billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg into the presidential race.

Murdoch wrote in a tweet last night, “with Trump becoming very serious candidate, it's time for next billionaire candidate, Mike Bloomberg to step into ring. Greatest mayor.”

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As market turmoil rolls on, and economies here and around the globe remain uncertain, could this be the beginning of the calls to bring a business person in the White House?

“What was supposed to be a very stage-managed succession to the nominations by Clinton and Bush has been completely thrown into disarray and the businessman idea, the straighttalking, no nonsense practical person who has run a large organization - which certainly describes Michael Bloomberg. I think that you're going to see a little bit of a hunger for that,” he says in the attached video. “People say ‘Look, if Trump can do what he did in the polls without even having a political organization, what could a guy like Bloomberg do.’”

While it doesn’t necessarily mean Bloomberg is going to take heed and decide to run, Santoli notes that it’s interesting that all of a sudden pundits are talking about the need for business people to run. “It shows that people thought that the political industry got way too insular and professionalized,” he says, and there’s a desire for someone “who's actually made a buck out there” in the real world. And with Wall Street (and mom and pop investors) seeing their investment returns shrinking, the desire to put a man, or woman like Carly Fiorina, in the White House to right the economic ship could increase.

As for whether Rupert Murdoch was drafting Bloomberg as a way to poke Donald Trump in the eye, that’s another story. But one thing that might help the “draft a businessman lobby” and Bloomberg in particular is the fact that Wall Street would support him. “I would say on a net basis [Bloomberg] probably will be very friendly to the financial institutions and Wall Street as a business, because that's the world he's existed in for decades,” Santoli says.

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