Nominee

Treasury Secretary nominee John W. Snow will resign his membership in Augusta National Golf Club, which has been under fire for not allowing women to join. Snow, chairman of the transportation and railroad conglomerate CSX, was nominated yesterday by President Bush and must be confirmed by the Senate. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters before Bush's announcement that such a membership would not be a "disqualification" for a nominee. Three hours later, Fleischer announced Snow is leaving the club.

Just hours before Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist announced Thursday night that he had no intention of retiring from the Supreme Court, four senators urged Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a letter to remain on the court and be ready to ascend to the chief's post should Rehnquist decide to quit. Never mind - just another illustration of the futile activity and rampant speculation that often consume the nation's capital as it anticipates the selection of a Supreme Court nominee.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court race turned negative yesterday as voters across the state reported receiving anonymous recorded phone calls criticizing Democratic nominee Max Baer. The 15-second calls provided no information about which organization financed the effort. Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin, the Republican nominee, denied any involvement in the calls. Her spokesman, John Brabender, said he had "received assurances" from the state Republican Party that it wasn't involved, either.

The Delaware County Republican Party has nominated Edward J. Zetusky Jr., a lawyer in Chester for 30 years, to fill the Delaware County Court seat left vacant by the resignation last month of Judge Joseph T. Labrum Jr. Zetusky, 58, will run for the judicial post in November. The party's vacancy committee endorsed him unanimously, said Party Chairman Thomas J. Judge. Zetusky "has all the qualifications necessary to be a judge," Judge said. He declined to discuss other candidates considered for the spot.

Democratic Senate nominee Joe Sestak went a long way in his primary fight with Arlen Specter by stressing trust and accountability. So the Delaware County congressman needs to be more forthcoming about his allegation that the White House offered him a job if he would stay out of the race. When asked about the accusation, as he was again Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Sestak says, yes, the offer was made. But he won't say what it was, or who made it. This too-cute-by-half stance may allow him to tout his independence and outsider credentials - important in an anti-incumbent year like this one. But by not being specific, Sestak is covering up what appears to be the ultimate insider deal - and a potential crime.

Every time Joe Sestak wins an election, he has the same morning-after: early handshakes of gratitude with commuters on a train platform. So it was Wednesday, when, on less than three hours' sleep, the two-term congressman from Delaware County showed up in his flight jacket at the Market East SEPTA station before 6 a.m. to thank commuters for making him the state's newly minted Democratic Senate nominee. The end of his day - three state lines and about 18 hours away - would come in a House committee, shepherding a sheaf of amendments to a spending bill through a series of votes.

Gov. Rendell's nominee to the School Reform Commission was grilled for more than an hour yesterday during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Education Committee about whether his work as a private lawyer would cause any conflict with or bias in his duties on the Philadelphia panel. Joseph A. Dworetzky, a former Philadelphia city solicitor, was questioned most intensely on his position on charter schools. Lawmakers, including Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Phila.), wanted to know whether his past representation of the state Department of Education in litigation involving charters in the Chester-Upland School District meant he opposed such schools.

Her prospects diminished by the primaries Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she's staying in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and that she is her party's better hope for victory in November. Clinton's pledge to keep running "until there's a nominee" came as Barack Obama, his front-runner status reinforced by the results from North Carolina and Indiana, picked up endorsements from four more of the superdelegates who ultimately will decide the outcome.

In an unprecedented move to defuse the controversy surrounding his choice for state treasurer, acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco yesterday allowed ranking members of the state Senate Judiciary Committee to review the state-police background check of Isabel Miranda. The committee had been scheduled to take up Miranda's nomination Monday, but its chairman, Sen. William Gormley (R., Atlantic), postponed the hearing after a published report said a former employer, Citibank, had fired Miranda for misusing company funds.

It makes no sense for Republicans to put their White House hopes on a 73-year-old "tax collector for the welfare state," as Newt Gingrich dubbed Bob Dole years ago. And it's dumb for the new Reform Party to nominate a paranoid control freak, Ross Perot, even though he paid millions for the party. Right now, Dole and Perot look so weak that folks in the peanut gallery have lost sight of Bill Clinton's character flaws, which are renowned, plus the ethical Halloween of people close to him. In other words, all three parties are picking the wrong person for president.