Aren't they cute. /sarcasm
That's exactly how important they thought our national security was.
Kerry's foreign policy Staff
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/05/31/MNGK86UH4E1.DTL
Indeed, no aspect of the campaign has been more transformed. Rand Beers, a counterterrorism specialist who quit President Bush's National Security Council in March 2003, remembers working from home after agreeing to head the Kerry campaign foreign policy staff -- of one -- less than two months later. Back then, he often communicated to the campaign via e-mail. By August, he and two young aides had an office, of sorts, in a basement apartment with one window.
"We were truly the foreign policy team in the sense of being foreign from the campaign," Beers recalled.
Since Kerry essentially wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination in March, however, many of the party's all-stars have signed on to the campaign. Now in the midst of an 11-day blitz on foreign policy, Kerry also is being advised by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Bill Richardson, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili, former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware.
Rubin likened it to a government-in-exile, because most served in the Clinton administration -- a stark contrast to the previous two Democratic presidents, who had to build staffs and formulate positions after long periods of the party being out of power.
Kerry relies on his foreign policy staff less for tutorials and positioning on policy than for a sounding board to refine details, according to aides.
For now, the Kerry campaign's foreign policy focus is on four concerns: Iraq, the Middle East, terrorism and nonproliferation.