Very few Americans had heard of Barack Obama before his 2004 Democratic Convention speech. On his life and career before then, we have only a few sources to go on. Two autobiographical books written by Obama, one of which features composite and fictional characters; David Mendell’s biography Obama: From Promise to Power; and the coverage of the Chicago and other Illinois media from when Obama entered elected office in 1996 or so. The local press would probably admit that for many of the eight years Obama was in the state legislature, he was not a terribly high-profile figure.

Ordinarily in cases like this, those who wanted to know more about a candidate’s rise to the pinnacle of American politics would look at his record, or specifically, his records of what he did, what his actions were, as a legislator. Who did he contact within the state government, and what did he urge them to do? What were his priorities when he was not under such a glaring national spotlight? And in the past, Obama and his staff have encouraged just that:

Earlier this year, campaign spokesman [Ben] LaBolt asked The Associated Press to narrow a request for records on whether Obama had ever urged clemency for a convicted criminal.
“You’re asking us to do an extremely exhaustive search into every record we have from the U.S. Senate and state Senate offices,” LaBolt said at the time. At the news conference in Iowa last week, Obama said he didn’t “have a whole bunch of records from those years,” but told reporters to “let us know” if there are “particular documents that you are interested in.”

Except later in 2007, the campaign stated those records no longer existed. “LaBolt said Obama did not keep any correspondence with the general public. Ditto for letters to or from state associations and lobbyists, memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. The campaign said Illinois agencies have copies of his requests for information or help, but accessing those records would involve contacting the agencies and asking them to comb though eight years of records to find correspondence from Obama.”