The sport of politics. The politics of sport.

Showing his cultural smarts, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign bought ad time just before the start of the second half of yesterday’s Super Bowl.

Fellow contender New York Sen. Hillary Clinton may hope the Giants win bodes well for her chances on Super Tuesday — tomorrow — but Obama is closing the gap in California, and he was just endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver.

Just as the Giants and Patriots demonstrated during this year’s NFL season, this year’s crop of presidential candidates can’t count on their edge early on in the primaries to carry them to victory in the big playoff picture that is Super Tuesday. All roads lead to the battle between the two parties for the White House in November — when the Super Bowl of American politics compels us to choose our next president.

Tomorrow, voters from both parties will be picking what they hope will be the best QB for their team.

We won’t know who REALLY has the competitive advantage until then, but the Obama campaign wisely made sure the 97.5 million viewers who tuned into the Super Bowl got to see and hear their QB’s vision for the nation. RZP gives the Obama campaign an A+ in strategy for reaching out to the football fan constituency, which we believe Democrats have overlooked for far too long.

Yours Truly, A.F. Cook