>Michelle Obama was a "community outreach" VP at a hospital in Chicago and her salary mysteriously tripled to $300K when her husband was elected to the US Senate.

FWIW, that's misleading. From http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/michelle-obamas-salary/:

"Michelle Obama had been promoted in 2005 to vice president for community and external affairs after three years as the executive director for community affairs. It’s true, as the e-mail (and National Review column) says, that she received a sizable pay raise that year. She went from earning $121,910 in 2004 as an executive director at the hospital to making $316,962 in 2005 as a vice president, according to tax returns filed by the Obamas for those years."

So, she got a promotion that came with a salary increase. Was her promotion related to his election? Don't know, but the word "promotion" in the paragraph above links to http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2005/20050509-obama.html. At a minimum, the word "mysteriously" in your assertion is wrong.

Tamar