Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has chosen four donors to dine with the Democrat next month.
When describing the contest, Obama (Ill.) said donors who gave as little as $5 would be considered to "have an opportunity to interact with me directly."
"We'll fly you in, I'll pay for dinner, we'll sit and we'll talk about what we need to do to change this country," the 2008 hopeful said in a Web video.
The campaign said yesterday the dinner will take place at a restaurant in D.C.
Rivera works at a New York food bank and founded a nonprofit to get kids involved in civics.
Griffith is a miner in western Nevada whose donation to Obama was his first time getting involved in politics.
Thomas-Jordan is the wife of a U.S. serviceman in Iraq. The couple has two children and she is in nursing school.
Lasko, a former Republican, is a firefighter who hasn't been active in campaigns since Ronald Reagan was reelected in 1984.
In a statement, Obama said the donors "are representative of the millions of voices that have been drowned out by the special interests in Washington."
“This dinner is about hearing from the everyday experts on how we can work together to change the problems facing this country today,” he said.
-- Christina Bellantoni, national political reporter, The Washington Times
