Rupert Murdoch, Mitt Romney's billionaire nemesis, could dissuade 'millions of voters'

Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch doesn't like Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney — that much is clear after Murdoch unleashed a flurry of unflattering tweets Sunday, and the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal published a staff editorial Thursday excoriating Romney.

What remains to be seen, though, is just how much Murdoch could ultimately harm Romney through the influential media platforms he owns such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News.

On Thursday, the Huffington Post's Jack Mirkinson summarized Murdoch's anti-Romney tweets from earlier in the week: "The rift between Rupert Murdoch and Mitt Romney is coming more and more into the open. Murdoch set off a flurry of attention on Sunday when he wrote a series of highly critical tweets about the presumptive GOP nominee. He said that Romney's campaign team was not prepared to go head-to-head with President Obama's, and that it was doubtful that Romney could win in November unless he shook things up."

Also Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a scathing staff editorial pummeling Team Romney's brain trust for ineffective campaign strategies.

"The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault. We're on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that 'Obama isn't working.' Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better."

Standing a safe distance back from this particular fray, the New York Times attempted to convey the broader significance of Murdoch repeatedly emitting anti-Romney vibes.

"The (Wall Street Journal) editorial was a stern reminder of Mr. Romney’s failure to win the trust of the Republican Party’s core conservatives, a group that pays close attention to Mr. Murdoch’s newspapers and cable news outlets," Jeremy Peters wrote Thursday for the Times. "Though political strategists debate the ultimate impact of any single media outlet, what is written in the pages of The Journal and The New York Post and talked about on Fox News — all Murdoch properties — could have the collective power to shape the thinking of millions of voters."