Mike, I made reference to Obama's tactics, and you asked for some specifics. I decided to start a new thread.

Obama has a history of not just trying to defeat his opposition (the goal), but clearing the field of opposition.

One dirty handed tactic he used was to challenge the legality of some of the signatures that his opponent used on her nominating petitions to run in the Democrat primary against Obama, when Obama first ran for the Illinois House. This woman had held that seat for several terms, then decided to run for the llinois Senate when the Senator from that district decided not to run for re-election, then changed his mind and decided to seek re-election instead. Then the woman decided late to run for her old seat in the House again. This woman was and is some big heroine in the civil rights movement (I forget her name, I'll have to Google it).. Obama managed to have her kicked off of the Democrat primary ballot by mounting an extensive legal campaign that managed to get a number of her signatures on her nominating position disqualified. As a result, Obama had no opponent in the Democrat primary.

In 2004 when Obama ran for the United States Senate his first opponent was Jack Ryan. At the time Ryan was involved in a vicious divorce fight with his wife Jeri Ryan (the actress). Obama and his lawyers threatened to make the divorce case public unless Jack Ryan withdrew from the race. (The Tribune and other sources essentially did the same thing). Somehow they had gotten their hands on the divorce proceedings (which were supposed to be sealed, and contained some ugly details). Among others Mike Ditka turned down the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. In the end the Illinois Republicans managed to talk Allan Keyes into moving from Maryland to Illinois to run against Obama just so they could have someone take on Obama. Obama won that race by about a 4-1 margin.