Who's who: Kerry-Edwards campaign edition.

• Author: Sullivan, Amy
• Position: 10 Miles Square

If a presidential candidate's essential political self is reflected in the people he hires, John Kerry sure looks like an old-fashioned Massachusetts liberal. The state's senior senator, Ted Kennedy, exerts a strong gravitational pull: His former chief of staff, Mary Beth Cahill, is Kerry's campaign manager, while Bob Shrum, whose relationship with Kennedy dates back to the 1980 presidential race, orchestrates message and strategy with his partners Tad Devine and Michael Donilon. One of Kerry's closest advisors, his distant cousin and Senate chief of staff David McKean, has known the candidate since the two got their start in Boston politics 30 years ago. David Wade, Kerry's Senate communications director and now campaign spokesman, is at the candidate's side more than anyone. Political veteran Michael Whouley--described by one campaign insider as "Joe Trippi before Joe Trippi was cool"--heads a contingent of behind-the-scenes players from the Boston-based Dewey Square Group.

Kerry has also installed John Sasso, former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis's 1988 bid at the Democratic National Committee as chairman Terry McAuliffe's deputy and likely successor. Fellow Bostonian and Dukakis veteran Jack Corrigan is in charge of the upcoming Democratic National Convention. The candidate's brother, Cam Kerry, remains one of the senator's most trusted advisers.

The presence of so many Kennedy and Dukakis veterans atop the Kerry organization has made it easier for the GOP and some pundits to paint the candidate as a Massachusetts liberal. Yet careful observers have noticed that Kerry has in recent months adopted not just the rhetoric but also the policies of a Clinton-style New Democrat. There's a reason for this, beyond the natural inclination toward the center that emerges in almost any general election campaign, and it has to do with personnel. With the exception of the Shrumians, all the Boston types are involved in the operations side of the campaign, such as organizing the convention and running the field apparatus. Actual message and policy development is in the hands of a whole different group: ex--Clinton White House aides. The Bostonians run the trains, the Clintonites supply the brains.

The unofficial twin pillars of the policy shop are Gene Sperling, former head of the National Economic Council under Clinton, and Bruce Reed, who seated Clinton as domestic policy advisor before heading over to the Democratic Leadership Council. Former...