Kerry to use Senate seat to remain major voice

Democrat John F Kerry plans to use his Senate seat to remain a major voice in American politics and is assessing the feasibility of trying again in 2008, despite his defeat in the presidential elections.

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, a US daily quoted his friends and aides as saying.

Kerry is relishing the prospect of renewed combat with President George W Bush, fighting measures such as the president's proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, The Washington Post reported.

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 elections.

Kerry fueled talk about a 2008 bid during remarks at a Washington restaurant on Saturday night. He provoked a thunderous reaction by reminding about 400 campaign aides and volunteers that Ronald Reagan twice sought the Republican nomination for president before winning it in 1980.

"Sometimes God tests you," said Kerry. "I am a fighter, and I have come back before." "Kerry will not do what Al Gore did after the last election--he will not disappear. He will be active and vocal. He has one of the most powerful lists in the Democratic Party and one of the most powerful fundraising bases in the party, and I think he intends to use it to speak out," Bob Shrum, Kerry's chief campaign consultant, told reporters during a Democratic panel on Monday.