The New York Post has surprised many readers with its unexpected endorsement of Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying he “represents a fresh start.” Rupert Murdoch’s Post also opined that Hillary Clinton and her husband “stand for déjà vu all over again — a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency.”
But the Obama endorsement “was not about politics or Billary hating as much as it was about business,” Charles Warner observes on The Huffington Post.
Murdoch wants to use his newly acquired Wall Street Journal to challenge the New York Times and his Post to drive the New York Daily News out of business, observes Warner, who speculates on what Murdoch might have been thinking:
“I hate The New York Times and want to position the Post as its opposite, especially after the Times endorsed Billary. By endorsing Obama I appeal to many of my core readers, especially younger ones, which advertisers love.
“By endorsing Obama before the Daily News does, I get a nice little circulation pump and I put the News in a bind — a strategic dilemma. If it endorses Billary” it will perturb many of its readers “and look like it is taking a cue from the Times. If the News endorses Obama, that’s good because it might help defeat Billary, plus it will make it look like it is following the Post — a win/win in either case for me.”
By endorsing Obama, Murdoch “has achieved another edge on the Daily News,” Warner concludes, “even if he had to get under the political bedcovers with liberal Ted Kennedy.”