I beleive Kerry has a solid future ahead of him in the Senate. His decision to concede on Wednesday, in defiance of John Edwards, saved his reputation. I think Kerry saw how Al Gore self-destructed by challenging the 2000 election, and opted to take a more graceful route.
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you here, UWH. If kerry had seen any way at all to win the presidency by legal contest, he would have done so in a heartbeat. But he and his advisers saw it was hopeless. That, IMO, is the only reason he didn't do as Gore had done and put the country through 6 weeks of uncertainty and distress. In sum, this election just wasn't close enough to steal and the question of the uncounted provisional ballots couldn't save him because there were too few of them relative to Bush's lead, particularly in Ohio. It's no secret that roughly 80-90% of them get invalidated anyway.