Cabinet Secretary

Thirteen years ago, Terry Tamminen was a Malibu pool cleaner and part-time actor with a gift for charming influential people and a resume that chronicled more rambling than a Jack Kerouac novel. Tamminen had sold condos in Florida, managed a sheep ranch in the Midwest, helped start a bottle recycling program in Nigeria, dabbled in Shakespearean acting and measured chlorine levels for such celebrities as Madonna and Johnny Carson.

The White House bills it as a "listening tour," a chance for President Obama's Cabinet to get out of Washington and hear what's on the minds of rural voters around the country. En route, the White House is making sure it reaches voters in crucial swing districts.

Officially, the chief of staff to Nevada's governor was invited to Brentwood to brief California's governor-elect on border issues from gambling to energy to Lake Tahoe. But for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the purpose of those three hours of meetings at his home on a Saturday in October was to size up the Nevadan. He was impressed. Within days, the governor-elect had begun a successful effort to recruit her to his senior staff.

An initiative that President Clinton has billed as an effort to engage the country in a frank dialogue on race relations moved to Dallas late last week in the form of a closed-door meeting with only blacks invited. The community forum, among the first in a wave of meetings being used to revive an initiative widely criticized as lackluster, was moderated by Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater, one of the administration's highest-ranking black officials.

After less than a year in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces a reshuffling of his top staff, with the impending resignation of yet another influential aide and maybe others. Marybel Batjer, his Cabinet secretary who bears much of the responsibility for running the government day to day, is expected to resign by year's end. Today, state budget chief Donna Arduin departs.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, responding to lawmakers' complaints that President Clinton's health care reform legislation has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill, said Tuesday that the White House is taking another look at the plan's widely challenged cost estimates.

Japan's prime minister is Keizo Obuchi, but the shadow shogun truly running the world's second-largest economy, many insiders say, is the enigmatic and widely feared politician Hiromu Nonaka. Though little known outside Japan beyond his role as government spokesman, the prime minister's chief Cabinet secretary wields enormous power here. Nonaka's shrewd political tactics are credited with keeping the Obuchi administration alive for more than nine months, far longer than many expected.

Spokesmen for Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown sought Tuesday to untangle apparent inconsistencies in his statements on an influence-peddling accusation, amid signs that political fallout from the allegation is causing growing concern at the White House. Brown, accused of taking $700,000 to help lift the trade embargo against Vietnam, was quoted by his spokesman last month as saying that he had never met the Vietnamese businessman who supposedly made the offer.

When Warren Christopher left Los Angeles in January to become Bill Clinton's secretary of state, the early reviews were glowing: Here was a supremely steady hand, the pundits said, to help an untested young President navigate a tumultuous post-Cold War world. Four months later, Christopher can be forgiven for admitting he occasionally misses life in California.

James H. Lake, a prominent lobbyist who acted as a behind-the-scenes adviser to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, will plead guilty Wednesday to making illegal campaign contributions to Espy's brother, Lake's attorney said Monday. Lake's admission comes in response to charges filed by Donald C. Smaltz, the court-appointed independent counsel investigating allegations against Mike Espy, who was President Clinton's first agriculture secretary.