WASHINGTON INSIGHT

HELP WANTED, FEMALE: Still reeling from the hordes of “angry white men” who trashed their party in last November’s midterm election, Democrats are hoping to find part of the solution by luring more female voters to their banner in 1996.

To bolster the traditional Democratic advantage with women, party strategists are considering naming a woman as chairperson of President Clinton’s reelection drive. Under consideration: Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, whose feisty style it is thought would appeal not only to women, but might even win over some of the discontented male voters.

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TIMBER STUMPING: A coalition of nearly 60 environmental and consumer groups is mounting an unusual lobbying campaign using the medium as the message. They’re trying to inundate the White House with tens of thousands of chunks of wood. The purpose is to urge Clinton to veto Republican-backed legislation that would direct the Forest Service to oversee the sale of massive new amounts of salvaged timber. The proposal also would make it almost impossible for citizens to sue to block timber sales on environmental grounds. The “Washington Wood-In,” whose participants include the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society, urges participants to send only scrap wood that is “smooth and dry for easier handling.” Preprinted labels exhort Clinton to “Salvage Your Presidency” with a veto. “This allows people to send something more gratifying than a postcard or letter that they know he’s never going to read,” said Lewis Seiler, president of Voice of the Environment, who spearheaded the campaign.

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YUCKLESS: When Clinton abandoned the text of humorous remarks he was to deliver Saturday at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, giving a short talk about the Oklahoma City bombing instead, he buried a lot of jokes written for the occasion. Afterward, White House aides who contributed to the stillborn speech were a trifle crestfallen. “Here’s the spin,” said one, ruing his misfortune at a post-dinner party in the humbling company of funnymen Conan O’Brien, Jerry Seinfeld and Al Franken. “Just say it was the speech that was too funny to give.” It was to have opened: “I have come here tonight to address a very relevant issue, especially in these times of a powerful Republican Congress. The President is funny. The Constitution makes me funny. The power of the presidency makes me funny. If you don’t believe me, don’t laugh at my jokes. And have a nice audit.”

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AIMING LOWER: Republicans who vowed to give the Pentagon budget a hefty boost have run into a wall of flak. Although many GOP lawmakers wanted to increase Clinton’s budget by $100 billion or more over five years, House and Senate leaders are holding them to just over half that amount--or less. The reason: Broader GOP goals of reducing the federal budget deficit while simultaneously cutting taxes will leave little room for buying more weapons. And freeing up more defense dollars by rejuggling the Pentagon’s budget is proving more difficult than expected. As things stand now, the Republicans seem agreed to try to “freeze” defense outlays at their fiscal 1995 level of $270 billion for at least five years. That would avoid a reduction in funding that Clinton has programmed for fiscal 1996 and 1997. But by the year 2000, annual spending under the Administration and GOP versions of the budget would be about the same.