It can be argued that Barack Obama won his Senate seat in 2004 on the back of his opposition's divorce files. While much ado was made nationally of the contents of his Republican Senate opponent Jack Ryan's files, the release of which caused Ryan to drop out of the race against Obama, divorce files were also critical to Obama's win in that year's Democratic Senate Primary. Is Obama now going to try to use Senator John McCain's divorce files to win the Presidency?

As the 2004 Senate primary neared, it was clear that it was a contest between two people: the millionaire liberal, Hull, who was leading in the polls, and Obama, who had built an impressive grass-roots campaign. About a month before the vote, The Chicago Tribune revealed, near the bottom of a long profile of Hull, that during a divorce proceeding, Hull's second wife filed for an order of protection. In the following few days, the matter erupted into a full-fledged scandal that ended up destroying the Hull campaign and handing Obama an easy primary victory. The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had "worked aggressively behind the scenes" to push the story. But there are those in Chicago who believe that Axelrod had an even more significant role - that he leaked the initial story. They note that before signing on with Obama, Axelrod interviewed with Hull. They also point out that Obama's TV ad campaign started at almost the same time.