Big names help Kerry hone his foreign policy message

Nearly every Monday at 4:30 p.m., more than two dozen experts on US national security dial into a conference call and thrash over the Iraq war, North Korean military brinkmanship, nuclear weapons security in Russia, and other issues -- not to solve the world's problems, but to advance Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign.

More than any other candidate, Kerry has set up his own version of the White House's National Security Council and assembled advisers with eye-catching bona fides, such as senior foreign policy aide Rand Beers, who until this past spring was President Bush's special assistant for combating terrorism.

Beers, who runs the weekly conference call, isn't whispering classified national security secrets into the candidate's ear, and neither are former Ambassador Joseph Wilson or other career diplomats who once handled assignments for the Bush administration and have now signed up for Kerry, say Beers and other advisers. Instead their expertise is being used to hone one of Kerry's chief political messages: that he would be a stronger, more seasoned commander in chief than either the incumbent president or any of his Democratic rivals.

"There hasn't been a presidential campaign since 1968 where foreign policy and national security policy were such a significant campaign issue," said Beers, who was an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration.

The group of advisers is intended to help Kerry "hit the ground running" on the war on terror if he becomes president, the senator says. It has also helped plot Kerry's strategy on the campaign trail.

Over the past 10 days, for instance, Kerry's advisers discussed the best way to respond to Bush's current trip to Britain. One poll of Britons that especially caught an adviser's eye indicates that 60 percent of the respondents saw Bush as a threat to world peace. Late last week, Beers and other Kerry advisers agreed that the Bush trip should become a "message issue."

Kerry then began talking of the "price of arrogance." In interviews today and tomorrow while Bush is in London, Kerry is expected to focus on the "price" of the Iraq war, such as the $87 billion in reconstruction costs or the rift between antiwar Britons and the White House.

Kerry is also playing the foreign policy card against Democratic front-runner Howard B. Dean.

"This is a time, it seems to me, for something called experience," Kerry said at a campaign stop Sunday night in Ottumwa, Iowa, before 150 voters.

"We're talking about the commander in chief and head of state of a nation on which every other nation in the world depends for leadership. It seems to me, folks, looking at Governor Dean, who may be a good man and have done well in Vermont or whatever -- which incidentally has a $1 billion budget, 700,000 people, one congressional district -- he may have done well there, but I have news for you. George Bush is the poster child for proof that the presidency of the United States is not the place for on-the-job training for national security in foreign affairs."

The uncharacteristic jab at Vermont shed light on Kerry's belief that neither Dean nor Bush has what the senator calls the "political, military, foreign, and national security experience" of Kerry.

Dean spokesman Jay Carson called the remarks "a desperate, negative attack."

While all nine Democratic candidates have recruited at least one foreign policy adviser, none has an operation as large as Kerry's. The leading Democrats -- Dean, retired general Wesley K. Clark, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, and Senators John Edwards and Joseph I. Lieberman, as well as Kerry -- have also consulted with the stars of the former Clinton administration, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former national security adviser Samuel R. Berger, and former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard C. Holbrooke, according to advisers for the presidential contenders.

Whether national security will play a pivotal role in the Democratic primary and the 2004 election, as Kerry hopes, is still unclear. Recent voter polls put national security concerns behind anxiety over the economy, health care, and jobs. But no other Democrat is ready to cede national security as an issue to Kerry. Yesterday, in a conference call with reporters, Clark's senior foreign policy adviser -- James Rubin,Albright's former State Department spokesman -- contended that Clark, as a former NATO Supreme commander, had more leadership experience in foreign affairs than Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran whose chief policy experience has been in the Senate.

But William Perry, former US defense secretary and Kerry supporter -- who is perhaps the highest-ranking former Clinton administration official to endorse a candidate -- said both Kerry's experience and the strengths of his advisers give him the greatest edge over Bush.

"I like General Clark, too, but Kerry has the most defense and nondefense national security experience in the field," Perry said. "During next year's election, that should count for something."

Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.