Change of Heart? CNBC's Jim Cramer Thinks Business Leaders Could Be Warming Up to Obama

While discussing a recent New York Times op-ed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, "Mad Money’s" Jim Cramer had a surprising bit of analysis: he thinks business leaders are turning away from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and are now giving President Obama a second look.

The conversation began by addressing claims that the Republican party is a disjointed mess.

“The Republican party has three legs,” host Joe Scarborough said, “It’s got a libertarian wing, it’s got a social conservative wing, and it’s got an economic wing. And if you have one person in the middle that can pull all that together then you got a coherent strategy, you got a strong party. The problem with this republican party is that they don’t have that.”

Scarborough went on to cite John “Jeb” Bush, saying that, unlike the current GOP presidential candidates, Bush is a well-liked libertarian-leaning, social conservative with pro-business beliefs.

All of this was to emphasize Scarborough's point that, if the GOP is really interested in a 2012 victory, Republicans must find a candidate who can draw together all the conservative factions and appeal to their different interests and priorities.

This led Scarborough to point out that although business leaders prefer Mitt Romney and that they “get him,” it seems they are alone among Republicans.

Cramer disagreed.

“Business leaders see that he created some companies, business leaders recognize that he would encourage hiring,” Cramer said, “But I got to tell you: no one sounds as enthusiastic as I thought they would be, and people are starting to talk about Obama again.”

“You’re saying even in the business community?” Scarborough asked.

“They used to be [for Romney],” Cramer replied.

See the Morning Joe crew discuss the possibility of President Obama regaining support from the financial industry via Mediaite:

This would be an interesting development considering that it seems business leaders have all but abandoned the president's re-election campaign.

As reported earlier on The Blaze, President Obama raised almost $16 million from employees in the securities and investment industry and their families in 2008. In 2012, JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose employees gave $23,494 to President Obama in the last three months, is the only financial institution among Obama’s top 10 list of donors for the fourth quarter.

And while some analysts believe that business leaders are disinterested in contributing to the president's re-election campaign because he has “backed tough regulations curbing the worst abuses,” others believe it is because he has repeatedly accused his former “fat cat” donors of being solely responsible for the recession.

If Cramer's predictions are correct, and "fat cat" business leaders are indeed interested in supporting the president's re-election campaign, it would be an awfully unexpected -- even inexplicable -- about-face.