'Fired Up' Kerry Returning to Senate [View All]

[Khephra]

'Fired Up' Kerry Returning to Senate
Aides Say He Wants to Act as Counter to Bush, and Possibly Run in 2008
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A02


Democrat John F. Kerry plans to use his Senate seat and long lists of supporters to remain a major voice in American politics despite losing the presidential race last Tuesday, and he is assessing the feasibility of trying again in 2008, friends and aides said yesterday.

Kerry will attend a post-election lame-duck Senate session that begins next week and has said he is "fired up" to play a highly visible role, the friends and aides said.

Aides said Kerry is relishing the prospect of renewed combat with President Bush, fighting such measures as the president's proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Kerry has spent the better part of the past two years on the campaign trail, meaning that his return to Capitol Hill will be something of a reintroduction to colleagues.

Kerry's plans contrast starkly with the approach taken by former vice president Al Gore, who all but disappeared from the political scene after losing to Bush in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35224-2004Nov8.html