At 81% legit, Kerry loses even if all of the ballots go for him. He gets 124,203 move votes; Bush's initial margin is 136,000 votes. Bush ends up ahead by 11,797 votes even if Kerry gets all of the provisional votes. What do you want to bet Kerry's people did very similar math before he conceded.
I think half of the Ballots would go to Kerry. There is no way in heck that he would overtake Bush lead.
I have no doubt.
They definitely did! It was discussed in Ryan Lizza's piece in the New Republic (posted on FR) a couple of days after the election. Lizza said that Kerry's staffers stayed up until 4am trying to figure out how to challenge the election results. They got precinct info from all their operatives in Ohio and realized that they just didn't have the votes. At this point Kerry made the decision to concede.