By Al Kamen
Friday, February 29, 2008 10:51 AM

The painful endorsement switch Wednesday by John Lewis, the Democratic congressman from Georgia and civil rights icon, from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) reflects the difficulties some members of former president Bill Clinton's Cabinet have been going through as they decide between the candidates.

Of two dozen former Cabinet heads, about half appear to have contributed to, or campaigned for, Clinton, our colleague Julie Tate reports after a review of Federal Election Commission records through the end of January. That includes former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and, more important for the Texas primary on Tuesday, Henry Cisneros, the former secretary of housing and urban development and former mayor of San Antonio.

Another five have not contributed to either candidate. For example, former Treasury secretary and Harvard president Lawrence Summers, now a global economic commentator, is staying out of the battle. Ditto for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was U.N. ambassador and energy secretary for Bill Clinton.

Former agriculture secretary Mike Espy has given to both candidates.

Obama appears to have picked off at least three former Clinton department chiefs. Former transportation and energy secretary Federico Pe¿a has been campaigning for Obama, and former commerce secretary William Daley was an early contributor. Former Clinton commerce secretary Norman Y. Mineta-- and more recently a Bush transportation secretary -- though a big Clinton fan, came out for Obama this month and will campaign for him in Dallas on Saturday.

Former labor secretary Robert Reich has been writing anti-Clinton tracts and has sharply criticized Bill Clinton's campaign style but has not endorsed either candidate.

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign quickly countered Lewis's defection, announcing the switch from Obama to Clinton of Veronica Escobar, one of El Paso County's four commissioners.

Obama -- doubtless soon to become better known as B. Hussein Obama -- keeps bragging about how he has generated vast new interest in politics, especially among the nation's callow youth. But folks in Denver are worried that he's gone too far.

So the Democratic National Convention's Host Committee has just issued a "volunteer update" warning a flood of would-be volunteers -- 25,000 people nationwide have already inquired -- that chauffeuring delegates or delivering them their brie sandwiches and Chablis will not get them onto the convention floor in late August.

Don't think a "volunteer position is a ticket, or a credential, to the Democratic Convention," the newsletter advised, adding that "very few volunteers will be stationed in and around" the convention center.

Hey. You could just watch on TV.

A watchdog group is trying to get the remaining presidential contenders to live up to what it is billing as the "Kerry precedent."

The Center for Public Integrity this week noted that in April 2004, shortly after he locked up the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) took the unprecedented step of releasing details of every meeting he had held with a lobbyist dating to 1989.

Kerry revealed nearly 200 meetings with lobbyists in an attempt to say he could defend every one. The group is asking this year's candidates to take the same pledge. But according to a statement it issued Tuesday, none has taken the time to "respond to the Center's inquiries, by telephone and e-mail, as to whether they are willing to make public their candidates' meetings with lobbyists over the past five years."

Our colleague Paul Kane had similar luck seeking responses from the camps of Clinton, Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

We got a voice-mail message Wednesday morning from a fellow who said he was a "64-year-old white man" and "a liberal" who took umbrage at our use of the phrase "random old white guy" to describe the type of candidate many of our Loop contest entrants thought Barack Obama would pick as his running mate.

"I don't think you would have written 'random old black guy,' " our caller said, and he was most offended by our use of the phrase.

Point taken. Although we actually thought that phrase was a huge step up the PC ladder from "geezer," our usual characterization, we will try again. From now on, it will be "typical aged Caucasian male."

Many thanks.

The highly regarded Meredith Atwell Baker, who has been acting assistant secretary of commerce and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration since the fall, is expected to announce today that she's leaving the agency.

Buzz is that President Bush on Monday will nominate Neil Patel, a former lawyer for an Internet company and more recently staff secretary and then domestic policy chief for Vice President Cheney, to be NTIA administrator.

Baker, who's been at NTIA for several years, leaves -- and Patel would take over -- with a potential train wreck looming, as the agency prepares for the conversion of all television broadcasting to digital a year from now. The problem is that more than 21 million households don't have digital TV sets and need converters before Feb. 17, 2009 -- after the Super Bowl but before the NCAA's Final Four -- and the agency is scrambling to make converter boxes available for them.

Though a Republican -- the daughter-in-law of former secretary of state James A. Baker III-- Baker has received high marks from House and Senate Democrats, who are worried about yet another change at the top while the clock ticks. Baker's predecessor had been there about 18 months.

Well, Patel needn't worry -- any crash will come after he leaves office.

If you're up in New York this morning, don't forget to stop by the 5W Public Relations firm for a timely speech "followed by Q&A & Networking," our invite says.

The topic is "national security and its weight in an election year," including the relevant issues and "socio/economic impact it may have."

The speaker? Former FEMA director Michael D. "Heck of a Job" Brown, the first commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. Now, before you ask what he could possibly know about national security and elections, you should recall that Brown, now a "strategist" for InferX, a company that develops software for screening cargo and passengers at U.S. ports and does risk prediction, has extensive international credentials.

His r¿sum¿ notes that he was "the U.S. Representative to NATO's Civil Emergency Planning Committee" and "the leader of a delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe." During his legal career, it says, Brown "negotiated manufacturing contracts in Brazil, France and Argentina."

Don't miss it.