Arlen Specter

Even if Arlen Specter doesn't pull out of the Republican presidential race at the press conference he has scheduled today, it's only a matter of time. The fact is, Pennsylvania's senior senator hasn't raised the kind of money needed to be competitive in the primaries and - for whatever reason - he has been unable to generate any significant support. He's finished, and he knows it. Because he is eminently realistic, it's hard to believe Specter ever believed he really had a chance.

ARUNNING joke in political circles is that Sen. Arlen Specter is actually wearing a GOP face mask to cover up his Democratic heart. In a meeting billed as the Middle Class Task Force held in Philadelphia last week, Vice President Joe Biden encouraged Specter to change his party affiliation to Democrat. But Specter says his GOP voice is essential to getting things accomplished in Washington, even if it troubles his decades-long political career. I wasn't surprised by Biden's suggestion that Specter change parties because I'd asked Specter the same question a few weeks ago at a meeting with a group of African-American media managers, reporters and editors who questioned him intensely about the $787 billion stimulus package.

So an ex-senator walks into a comedy club . . . That's not the setup to a joke - it's what happened Tuesday night when Arlen Specter took the stage at the Helium Comedy Club's open-mike night in Center City. "I've been in comedy now for 30 years," the former senator explained. Taking a try at stand-up was a natural step after spending so many years in the "sit-down comedy" of Congress - and, Specter noted, it was considerably less expensive. While some of his jokes are unprintable in a family newspaper - don't ask about the paraplegic who wanted to date the battered woman - Specter spent much of his three minutes on stage ribbing prominent local and national politicians.

Arlen Specter, who turns 82 on Feb. 12, played a significant role in the American politics of a past generation, and he doesn't want us to forget. That, essentially, is the purpose of the former U.S. senator's new memoir - that and decrying "intolerance and political correctness" in Washington, dallying a bit in gossip (he recounts hearing a penis joke or two), and settling a few old scores. He recalls every triumph and every slight, particularly a snub from President Obama during his failed 2010 effort to win nomination for a sixth term.

He's here, he's there, he's everywhere. Since his election to the Senate in 1980, Pennsylvania's junior senator, Arlen Specter, a former district attorney of Philadelphia and failed mayoral and gubernatorial candidate, has alternately amazed and annoyed his Washington colleagues, onlookers and staff members with his ability to speed from one topic or activity to another. In the course of a week, Specter can be standing on a ship being refitted in the Port of Philadelphia, sweeping through the state's rural counties seeking votes or raising campaign dollars, playing squash and sitting in the Senate sauna with other lawmakers or conducting a hearing under the glare of television lights on Capitol Hill on any number of topics.

The worst thing his opponent in the Democratic primary has been able to say about Sen. Arlen Specter is that he will do whatever it takes to be reelected and continue serving the people of Pennsylvania. Twist that ambition any way you want in slick TV commercials, and it still sounds like a desirable attribute. Specter doesn't want to stop working for Pennsylvanians, and the vigor he has brought to this campaign shows he's more than ready for another term. But getting there won't be easy.

A tall, dark-haired man in a brown leather bomber jacket bounded up the porch stairs of a split-level house in an Erie suburb yesterday morning and knocked on the door. "Gov. Ridge, good morning!" exclaimed a surprised Mary Lee Boyer. "Hiyadoin," Ridge said. "I'm just applying for my job for four more years. " Ridge had nothing to worry about. He could count on Boyer's vote and those of her Democrat husband and just about everyone else he greeted yesterday in this far northwestern Pennsylvania city he once represented as a congressman.

Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter's campaign bought thousands of ad minutes on Philadelphia black-oriented radio stations to air a clip of President Obama's praising him. And Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins made robo-calls to city Democratic voters saying that Specter has "proven he's on our team" by supporting the economic-stimulus and health-care overhaul. For Specter, surviving the Democratic Senate primary against Rep. Joe Sestak may well come down to his hometown, the city that launched his long political career in 1965, when he was elected district attorney - as a Republican.

All Sen. Arlen Specter wants as he sits down at the Vietnam Georgetown Restaurant after a bruising day of fighting for survival is a gin martini, with olives. How hard is that? "Bartender is not here tonight. No mixed drinks - beer, wine only," the young waiter says, tapping a pencil on his order pad. "No bartender?" Specter says. "How about a manager?" The kid shakes his head. "Well, how about straight gin on ice? Can you do that?" Specter asks, sighing. The waiter is puzzled.

Life Among the Cannibals?A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing as We Know It?By Arlen Specter with Charles Robbins?St. Martin's Press. 372 pages. ?$26.99   Reviewed by Steve Weinberg   Arlen Specter considers himself a rebel among professional politicians. To some extent, he is correct. After all, he won term after term in the U.S. Senate as a Republican in a state with traditionally strong Democratic voter registration. He is from Philadelphia in a state with a heavy rural base.

FORMER U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was in the air in 2008 when the Republican nominee for president, U.S. Sen. John McCain , revealed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his pick for vice president. "Who?" Specter recalls asking when his flight landed. A few months later, Specter rode with McCain and Palin on the "Straight Talk Express" bus to introduce them at a Delaware County rally. Specter writes in his new book - Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising and the End of Governing as We Know It - that Palin "sat silent" while he urged McCain to support a policy she opposed on embryonic stem-cell research.

HARRISBURG - During his 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Tom Corbett made the funding of an Arlen Specter library in Philadelphia the punch line of a campaign ad about wasteful government spending. Think of that funding, Corbett said in the television ad, "next time you hear we have to raise taxes because there's nothing left to cut. " Now, the joke may be on him. This week, Gov. Corbett signed off on a $1.9 million state grant for the library that will house Specter's papers and memorabilia - along with an office for the former Pennsylvania senator.

Arlen Specter, who turns 82 on Feb. 12, played a significant role in the American politics of a past generation, and he doesn't want us to forget. That, essentially, is the purpose of the former U.S. senator's new memoir - that and decrying "intolerance and political correctness" in Washington, dallying a bit in gossip (he recounts hearing a penis joke or two), and settling a few old scores. He recalls every triumph and every slight, particularly a snub from President Obama during his failed 2010 effort to win nomination for a sixth term.

Should President Obama dump Joe Biden as his running mate and replace him with Hillary Rodham Clinton? Arlen Specter was asked that hot-potato question, circulating in some Democratic circles, in a meeting Tuesday with the Inquirer Editorial Board. His answer showed that the former 30-year senator hasn't lost his knack for blunt talk - nor, perhaps, his bitterness over what he feels were slights from Obama during his own failed 2010 reelection campaign. He suggested that maybe Obama was the one who should be dumped.

Should President Obama dump Joe Biden as his running mate and replace him with Hillary Clinton? Arlen Specter was asked that hot-potato question, circulating in some Democratic circles, in a meeting Tuesday with The Inquirer editorial board. His answer showed that the former 30-year senator hasn't lost his knack for blunt talk - nor, perhaps, his bitterness over what he feels were slights from Obama during his failed 2010 Senate campaign. He suggested maybe Obama is the one who should be dumped.

So an ex-senator walks into a comedy club . . . That's not the setup to a joke - it's what happened Tuesday night when Arlen Specter took the stage at the Helium Comedy Club's open-mike night in Center City. "I've been in comedy now for 30 years," the former senator explained. Taking a try at stand-up was a natural step after spending so many years in the "sit-down comedy" of Congress - and, Specter noted, it was considerably less expensive. While some of his jokes are unprintable in a family newspaper - don't ask about the paraplegic who wanted to date the battered woman - Specter spent much of his three minutes on stage ribbing prominent local and national politicians.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid will be suspended for 100 days without pay for accepting political contributions from her staff for two Republican candidates, according to an agreement reached with the U.S. Justice Department and Office of Special Counsel. Magid admitted to violating the federal Hatch Act, which limits the political activities of government employees, by receiving contributions from her subordinates for then-U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and now-U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan in 2008 and 2009.

HE'S OLDER, he's even tougher - but after almost half a century in public life, the verdict on Arlen Specter remains somewhat elusive. After 30 years, Specter is Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. Senator, and probably its most idiosyncratic. His five terms have included dizzying ideological twists, major accomplishments and opportunistic betrayals, clout that brought billions of federal dollars to the commonwealth and a legendary commitment to constituent service. Not to mention a quirkiness that suggested independence but sometimes veered into the ridiculous - as when Specter avoided voting aye or nay on the Clinton impeachment but instead invoked Scottish law to pronounce the case "not proven.