The First Lady And The Chicago Polling Place: The Law Is For All You LITTLE People

Disappointing, but completely unsurprising.

Every state in the union has a law against anyone attempting to campaign or influence voters inside the polling place. It's off limits, a place where the voter and his/her conscience enter unmolested. It's quiet, orderly, calm. In Tennessee, signs forbidding campaigning are posted 100 feet from the poll entrance.

Like, it doesn't take a law degree from Harvard to read and understand this stuff, ya'll.

Unless you're The One's Main Squeeeeezzze, Mizz Michelle. Wait a minute, she has a Harvard law degree, right?

But that's OK. She's one of the Big People. Those signs are for the Little People.

Like you.

First lady Michelle Obama appears to have violated Illinois law -- when she engaged in political discussion at a polling place!

The drama began after Mrs. Obama stopped off at the Martin Luther King Center on the south side of Chicago to cast an early vote.

After finishing at the machine, Obama went back to the desk and handed in her voting key.

She let voters including electrician Dennis Campbell, 56, take some photos.

"She was telling me how important it was to vote to keep her husband's agenda going," Campbell said.

According to a pool reporter from the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES at the scene, the conversation took place INSIDE the voting center, not far from the booths.

Illinois state law -- Sec. 17-29 (a) -- states: "No judge of election, pollwatcher, or other person shall, at any primary or election, do any electioneering or soliciting of votes or engage in any political discussion within any polling place [or] within 100 feet of any polling place."

A top Ilinois State Board of Elections official tells the DRUDGE REPORT that Mrs. Obama -- a Harvard-educated lawyer -- may have simply been ignorant of the law and thus violated it unintentionally.

"You kind of have to drop the standard for the first lady, right?" the official explained late Thursday. "I mean, she's pretty well liked and probably doesn't know what she's doing."

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS ELECTIONEERING

When questioned about the brazen nature of Mrs. Obama's campaigning, press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the action.

"I don't think it would be much to imagine, the First Lady might support her husband's agenda," Gibbs smiled.

That's OK, ObamaBob. Keep smiling. No worries. Nobody's gonna notice, or conclude that your bosses despise both the law and the citizenry.

No worries, ya'll.