WASHINGTON INSIGHT

FATHER-OF-THE-BRIDE ANGST: As if sending his daughter off to college weren’t traumatic enough for President Clinton, he now has to deal with the realities of a First Beau. On Sunday, the Clintons were joined for church and brunch in Palo Alto by a young man with a crew cut who turns out to be Stanford junior Matthew Pierce, 18-year-old Chelsea’s boyfriend. The event clearly rattled the doting First Father, who already seemed to bracing himself for the “W” word--although there was no indication that the thought has even crossed the minds of the young couple. Addressing a fund-raising breakfast in Beverly Hills on Monday, Clinton told the crowd that his longtime friend--and former state insurance commissioner--John Garamendi had gotten a “daughter married off” the previous weekend. “He assures me it’s survivable, but I’m not so certain,” Clinton told the group of about 50, who were donating money to defeat California’s Prop. 226.

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IN HARM’S WAY: Louis Caldera, a former assemblyman from Los Angeles now at the Corp. for National Service, is expected to be nominated within days to be secretary of the Army, a hot-seat post where he would wrestle with touchy issues of war, gender relations and access to coveted Arlington National Cemetery plots. Caldera was best known in the Assembly for a bill to require children riding bicycles to wear safety helmets--a protection he might find useful in the new job.

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ON THE BUS: Summer heat and humidity make most Washington-area residents desperate to get out of town, but First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton already is planning her mid-July escape. She’ll make a millennium-related tour of American historic sites to promote their preservation. And should anyone doubt that patriotism is the driving force, consider the mode of transportation. “I intend to do this by bus,” Clinton said Monday.

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TIES THAT BIND: When the House returns to the issue of campaign finance reform later this month, it will take up the legislative product of a bipartisan freshman task force led by Reps. Thomas H. Allen (D-Maine) and Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.). If they want some extra muscle behind their uphill effort, they might consider putting in a call to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Both Allen and Hutchinson have ties to President Clinton going back a long way. Allen met Clinton when they were both Rhodes scholars at Oxford, and they have stayed in touch. Hutchinson holds the congressional seat sought (unsuccessfully) in 1974 by a 28-year-old law professor named Bill Clinton, and when he was GOP chairman in Arkansas, he had to deal with the state’s top Democrat: Gov. Clinton.

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ECONOMICS MADE EASY: Since the mid-1970s, the leaders of the United States and its six major trading partners have met annually for an economic summit. Although the parley recently has branched out into foreign policy and social questions, its main course has remained economics--from the intricacies of worldwide currency exchange rates to how to spur faster economic growth. But when the leaders gather this month in Birmingham, England, they will not be accompanied by their finance and foreign ministers, who attended past summits to help bolster any substantive discussions. It seems the top dogs wanted more time to discuss things among themselves. As a result, the leaders of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada--few of whom know much about high finance--ought to be able to get through the economics part of the agenda in a flash. There’ll be no one around to bother them with the facts.