While the Democrats last week took over Boston with their convention to nominate Sen. John Kerry for president, Republicans set up camp in enemy territory, with the uphill job of getting their own message out.

From a previously undisclosed location just blocks away from the Fleet Center, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and more than two dozen others set up a "rapid response team" war room designed to keep up the attack on Kerry and his running mate John Edwards.

Whereas traditionally opposing parties withdrew from the spotlight during political conventions, "truth squads" began cropping up in 1992-although not to the extent of the organized effort just seen in Boston.

"This might be the only place where you'll hear an actual discussion of John Kerry's record," Gillespie said.

Every day at 10 a.m., about two-dozen reporters traipsed to the fifth floor at 129 Portland St. for a daily press conference featuring Gillespie and prominent Republicans brought into town each day.

The GOP asked that the location be kept secret during the week-though word was out early as Democratic protestors dressed as "billionaires for Bush" and even as a superhero named "Enron Ed" stood outside the building.

The roster of prominent GOP visitors included former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld.

Their task was clear: portray Kerry as a liberal Democrat and a flip-flopper on issues who doesn't have the background to be commander-and-chief in a time of war.

While Democrats over and over highlighted Kerry's decorated tenure as a solider in Vietnam and knocked President Bush's handling of the war on terror, Republicans focused on Kerry's Senate record.

On Wednesday, Republicans released an 11-minute tape that aimed to crystallize their argument by taking various comments Kerry made about the war since 2001 and showing how he evolved from someone who strongly denounced Saddam Hussein as a terrorist and supported the Bush administration's call for a regime change to a candidate who right before the Iowa caucus in January proclaimed himself one of the anti-war candidates.

The Kerry campaign claimed the clips were showed out of context, but Giuliani said every voter should see the tape before the election. Indeed, the national GOP is trying to make that happen by sending the video out over the Internet to what they say are 8 million supporters.

With no uncertainty, the GOP last week put Giuliani forward as their star.

The man known as "America's mayor" for his handling of the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, was brought in Thursday-just hours before Kerry was to accept his party's nomination with a nationally televised speech.

Unlike the briefings the three previous days, which were held in the cramped makeshift GOP headquarters, the Giuliani event-which also included Gillespie, Healey and Weld-took place in a hotel ballroom and drew a rash of media.

Giuliani, who is a featured speaker later this month at the GOP convention in New York City, didn't disappoint his party.

He attacked Kerry and running mate John Edwards as representing the liberal wing of their party, accused Democrats of running away from Kerry's nearly two-decade U.S. Senate record, and talked up President Bush's handling of the war on terror.

Giuliani also made headlines by attacking Michael Moore, whose anti-Bush movie Fahrenheit 9/11 has grossed more than $100 million. Asked whether the movie could affect the presidential race, an emotional Giuliani responded "I don't need Michael Moore to tell me about Sept. 11."

But for all their efforts, the GOP presence was no more than a mosquito buzzing around the Democratic love-fest. As would be expected, most news coverage devoted little space to the daily attack campaign. "We understand we're swimming upstream," Gillespie said again and again.

Kenneth Lovett covered the Democratic National Convention for the New York Post.