The Obama campaign has a serious disconnect when it comes to understanding the boundaries between a political candidate and people's real lives. Apparently the vast campaign organization in Chicago that was burning through money faster than they could raise it last month is full of acolytes who really buy into the whole lightworker, messiah illusion.

Late in June, as the cash deficit must have seemed awfully scary, the campaign came up with the Bridal Registry, which presumed brides would ask guests to give to the campaign rather than a gravy boat or chafing dish. It has been an embarrassing flop. The New York Post reports:

So far, "the Event Registry" has been all but ignored on social-media sites - even though Facebook, Twitter and other networks have been a strong suit for the Obama campaign.

 "The number of links and stories about the announcement is very low since the news went live on June 22," said Meredith Klee, a spokeswoman for the social-media tracking firm Topsy.

Her site's latest data show 1,137 posts on Twitter about the registry.

And only a few hundred links to the registry have been shared on Facebook - even though Obama has more than 27 million fans on the site, according to Topsy.

But the campaign has outdone itself. Now they have announced a raffle to have Barack Obama appear in a family picture with the lucky winning family.  Seriously.  See:

The irrepressible Big Fur Hat created the perfect laugh-out-loud funny satirical response to demonstrate the creepiness of this.

BFH also writes his theory of how these gimkmicks are born:

The team places bets before they pitch these outrageously narcissistic ideas.

They sit around a table with Obama at the head, trying to contain their snickering.

They float the idea... Obama pauses, thinks about it.

The tension rises.

He finally says, "I like it."

Some snorts of laughter leak out a bit., and then money passes under the table from the poor suckers, who thought they've finally found the one outrageously embarrassing idea that Obama would turn down, to the wise bookie interns who know better.