KERRY OUT?

Homeland security consultant Jeff Beatty, new to Republican politics, arrived in Washington this week with a Zogby poll showing him in a virtual tie with Democratic Sen. John Kerry in Massachusetts.

Republicans had not listed the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate as even faintly vulnerable for re-election in 2008. The Zogby poll gives Kerry 48 percent to Beatty's 45 percent -- a tie with a 4.1 percent margin of error.

That signifies Beatty's strength rather than Kerry's weakness, with Zogby showing Kerry far ahead of other possible Republican candidates. Kerry leads Andrew Card, President Bush's former chief of staff, 61 percent to 29 percent. Beatty -- a veteran of the FBI, the CIA and the Army's Delta Force -- frequently appears on television commenting on security questions.

SHRUM IN BLIGHTY

Campaign consultant Bob Shrum, who retired from U.S. politics after publication this summer of his candid memoir ("No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner"), is now in Britain working for the Labor Party in the campaign of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Shrum was the strategist in the last two Democratic presidential campaigns for losing candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. But he has worked on the last three winning Labor efforts in Britain. Shrum has been a close friend of Brown for many years.

Shrum last month left his position on the New York University faculty. He is now an NYU fellow in London.