Barack Obama Rents Williams F1 For Interlagos

There has always been a rift between sports and politics. In 2006, Kirk Shelmerdine received an admonishment by the United States Federal Election Commission for placing a "Bush-Cheney '04" bumper sticker on his Nascar racer for four races during the 2004 season. Shelmerdine says it was a publicity stunt in order to receive sponsorship money.

In 2008, Barack Obama has found a way to gain exposure in the sporting realm without having to deal with the FEC. This afternoon, he announced to the world media that he was buying the Williams team for this weekend's season finale in Interlagos, Brazil.

The way he managed to get around this was that according to the Campaign Finance Reform of 2002, since the Williams team are not based nor racing in the United States, he is able to work his way around that issue and thus gives himself an international audience.

The sum has been undisclosed, but according to Sir Frank Williams, it is enough to keep the team going strong for next year.

For this weekend, the Williams team will be known as Williams-Change; Change being the party line for Obama's campaign. All the sponsors agreed that their logos would be removed in place of Obama and Change decals.

Even though Obama's campaign has more than enough money to pay for their logo on the likes of McLaren, Ferrari or BMW, Obama emphasized that the Williams' cars were already blue, similar to the colour that the Democratic Party signifies themselves with, and were also a middle team.

"Williams used to be a top team but because of the global economic crisis, they have fallen on hard times. They are a true middle-tier team" said an Obama campaign spokesperson. "We hope that under a President Obama, we can have a team like Williams win again."

The reaction of the John McCain campaign has been muted; however, rumour has it that he might be interested in buying space on the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen because they are red and signify the lives of the rich.

When asked about a possible Ferrari deal, John McCain said "it's expensive, but I'll have to ask Joe the Plumber and Joe Six-pack" without further elaborating.

Speed TV, a subsidiary of Fox and the broadcaster of F1 races for audiences in the United States and Canada was furious about this saying that even though the qualification and the race will be slightly delayed, they will be spending all their time blurring out the Obama/Change logos whenever they are showed.

Recent statistics show that Barack Obama outspent John McCain almost two to one on campaigning, from television to radio and even internet ads as well as space on Microsoft's Xbox Live interface. With the rental of the Williams F1 team this weekend, this could set a new precedent.