So, who made the decision to concede:
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=4548MCOUNTING EVERY VOTE
Boston Globe, THIRD, Sec. Op-Ed, p A11 01-06-2005
By BY CAMERON F. KERRY
SO NOW THE VOTES IN OHIO HAVE BEEN RECOUNTED, AND IT'S TIME FOR CONGRESS TO TALLY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. BUT WHILE THE ELECTION IS OVER, A FIGHT GOES ON TO PROTECT EVERYONE'S RIGHT TO VOTE AND MAKE SURE EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED.
I wish it weren't so, but the final facts look like the picture on the morning of Nov. 3 when my brother, John Kerry, ended his campaign for president. As campaign leaders sat in a Boston war room overlooking a dwindling Election Night rally in the plaza below, on the phone was a team of smart, tough veterans who know how to count votes and how votes get counted. All were veterans of Florida in 2000 who would have jumped at a rematch with Karl Rove and James Baker III.
In the room was Deval Patrick, former assistant attorney general for civil rights. In Washington was Michael Whouley, the never-say-die loyalist who stopped Al Gore from conceding; Jack Corrigan, who helped fight Bush v. Gore in the courts and the precincts; and Robert Bauer and Marc Elias, leading election lawyers and Kerry campaign counsel.
On the phone from Ohio was the chief of the legal team there, David Sullivan, longtime election counsel for the Massachusetts secretary of state, who himself was a plaintiff more than 30 years ago in a lawsuit to register college students and - with me - a defendant in unsuccessful lawsuit brought against us for properly challenging vote fraud.
They were backed by 3,300 lawyers on Ohio's election protection team, part of more than 17,000 Kerry-Edwards lawyers nationwide. They were joined by 8,000 lawyers with the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition of the NAACP, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and other organizations and thousands more lay volunteers and observers.
There are all these shadowy conspiracy theories as to why Kerry conceded and who was in the room. This is the most complete article I have as to who was there at that time. That is an impressive list of talent and quite a few were veterans of the 2000 debacle in Florida. One is a current candidate for Gov of Mass and has had a distinguished record that includes working for Clinton's Civil Rights division.
It really pisses me off when people argue without any facts at all. These are the people who decided that Kerry should concede. (And notice a prominent name that is NOT on the list.)