Millions of Americans probably received this week’s email from President Obama, inviting them to send money and be registered to win a free dinner with the President.

Heritage’s Ernest Istook took it as a personal invitation to be one of four people to be chosen.  And upon reading the fine print, he found he doesn’t have to send a donation in order to win this lottery.

“After all,” Istook says, if I contribute to the President I might be forced to accept an ambassadorship or some other federal job.”

The combination of campaign finance laws and raffle laws probably require that you cannot charge for the chance to dine with the President if a lottery is involved, thus Obama must allow even non-donors to enter his contest.  That can be done here.

The Washington Times this morning features Istook’s account of how it feels when “Obama Invites Me to Dinner!”, online here.

As Istook writes, Obama’s contest is a golden opportunity for “millions of unemployed Americans who want to tell the president what they think.”