BOSTON — The Democratic convention stage has the hushed mahogany dignity of a Republican men’s club: all dark wood paneling with maroon and faux marble trim. The podium has an ersatz presidential seal with a flag. Even the hoi polloi in the press are ennobled by the Eastern Establishment staging; the writing tables in the FleetCenter have mock blue marble tops.

“The preppy stiff,” as other Massachusetts pols called young John Kerry, according to Newsweek, is not doing an outre interpretation of the flag, like Michael Dukakis’ salmon, eggshell and azure stage in 1988.

“Stable change,” one top Democrat said, in an oxymoron describing the set for Thursday night’s live shot of “Live Shot,” as his colleagues dubbed the camera-loving senator. “We want to bring evolutionary change, not revolutionary change.”

The Democrats think the way to overthrow the Republicans is to mimic Republicans.

Democratic rivalries have to be tamped down; liberal losers must be kept offstage or at least out of prime time; the positive message has to be relentlessly drummed in, as do the themes of strength, heroism and patriotism. The Swift boat crewmen are toted everywhere to vouch that John Kerry is a comrade, not merely a set of political calculations.

When the National Guard mistakenly thought someone was parachuting onto the FleetCenter roof on Sunday night, reporters joked that it must be the nominee, once more proving what a manly man he is in yet another extreme sport, perhaps even landing in a rocket pack.

Democrats on the podium who want to rip the nation’s leaders as vile and dangerous deceivers who cried wolf on WMD and trample the Constitution have to stuff it, if not shove it. Their speeches are scrubbed to the point where the names Bush and Cheney are barely mentioned. (Kerry vetters, addicted to focus group dial-o-meters, didn’t want Jimmy Carter to criticize President Bush obliquely for “misleading” Americans about the war or not showing up for his National Guard duty. But they could not contain him or Al Sharpton.)

The Democratic money honeys, whose hive is the posh Four Seasons Hotel, flounce around the lobby with wads of embossed invitations to VIP events, every bit as regal as the Republican Rangers. The status symbol for the rich here is a bejeweled “Kerry 2004” pin worn by Teresa. The soft-money checks being cut in Boston (for supposedly independent groups run by Democratic loyalists) make a mockery of the McCain-Feingold law that Sen. Kerry supported.

Democrats are even aping the Republicans’ bunker-like secrecy about meetings with contributors. Reporters visiting the hospitality suite of one group, ACT, based at the Four Seasons and affiliated with Harold Ickes, who once ran Jesse Jackson’s campaign, were chased away and told: “We have wealthy donors to protect.”

You can feel the enormous effort in the air as Democrats try hard to put a smiley face on Kerry’s long face.

Republicans can rally around a candidate if they don’t love him, as they did with Richard Nixon in 1968. Even when W. was at his most unformed, and uninformed, Republicans easily found words of praise.

At parties around Boston, Democrats are having a hard time copying Republicans in that sense; their true feelings too easily tumble out. At one event I attended with some of Kerry’s best friends, some toasts went: He can be a pain in the neck on a typical day, but great in a crisis.

Paul Starobin of the National Journal reported that at 1:30 a.m. at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge the other night, Bill Clinton was forsaking both the South Beach diet and Kerry (whose success, after all, would impede a Hillary ascension in 2008).

Over a cheeseburger and fries, Elvis expounded to Vernon Jordan and Glenn Close, as Hillary sipped Veuve Clicquot. “The ex-prez believes that Kerry has got to make the case of having the requisite” brass to be commander in chief, Starobin reports. “Bill has himself been hearing doubts from moderate, swing voters. ‘They think Kerry’s smart — they’re not sure he’s tough,’ Clinton told a handful of nodding Noir guests.”

Even as the Democrats tried to be inoffensive, Dick Cheney was as offensive as ever, mocking the unfortunate picture of Kerry in his embryonic spacesuit.

Some Democrats fear that Kerry could be falling into a Republican trap, so worried about offending swing voters that he misses the knockout swing.