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.

ARLEN SPECTER was a Republican officeholder for 44 years, but when he switched to the Democratic Party in April 2009, it was like a homecoming. Although the move was made for political purposes, the five-term U.S. senator confessed at the time, "I had never felt really comfortable in the Republican caucus. " After all, he had been raised a Democrat in Wichita, Kan., in a family that venerated Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he came to Philadelphia as a Democrat in the 1950s. He became a Republican only when he was denied the support of the Democratic City Committee in his bid to become Philadelphia district attorney in 1965.

THE FUNERAL for Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator, Arlen Specter, will be held at noon Tuesday at the Har Zion Temple, in Penn Valley. The synagogue is on Hagys Ford Road near Hollow. His burial will immediately follow at Shalom Memorial Park, on Pine Road near Byberry, in Huntingdon Valley. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to attend the funeral services, which are open to the public. Recording devices and cameras are prohibited. Specter's family asks that donations be contributed to Philadelphia University or another charity in lieu of flowers.

Arlen Specter was remembered nationally for his bipartisanship and long career as a statesman as news spread Sunday that the former U.S. senator had died of cancer at 82. From President Obama to a former Eagles wide receiver, dignitaries voiced admiration for the man who, despite an often gruff demeanor, became Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator by forging compromises. In an interview Sunday, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey told a highly personal story from 2002, when he lost the Democratic primary for governor to Ed Rendell.

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.

THOSE WATCHING Sen. Arlen Specter's long career in public service might at times have felt like they were watching a vigorous tennis match between admiration and disappointment. Admiration, for example, at his vote that torpedoed conservative Supreme Court candidate Robert Bork, then disappointment at his brutal questioning of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' hearing. Admiration for his intellect and command of issues, and disappointment at his curious "single-bullet theory" of the Kennedy assassination.

Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, 82, reported Tuesday that he is again fighting cancer, but he said nothing about his condition. Specter, the longest-serving senator in Pennsylvania history, from 1981 through 2010, had kept his illness private until word of it began to leak into the news Monday night. He issued a statement at mid-morning, saying: "I'm battling cancer. It's another battle I intend to win. I'm grateful for all the well wishes I've received. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, to the comedy stage, to the squash court, and to the ballpark.

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.

The voluminous archives of the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter are heading west. Philadelphia University, which has custody, has struck a deal with the University of Pittsburgh to process, preserve, and digitize significant portions of Specter's material, officials announced Monday. The job is huge. Imagine 2,700 boxes of papers, photographs, audio and video materials, and memorabilia. That's enough to fill 337 four-drawer filing cabinets, notes Michael Dabrishus, Pitt's assistant university librarian.

DESPITE HIS penchant for the Boston brogue, Ben Affleck apparently can do a wicked Philly accent. At least according to William Goldenberg , the Philly-born editor who took home an Oscar recently for his work on the best-picture-winning "Argo. " Goldenberg also was nominated for his work on "Zero Dark Thirty. " According to Goldenberg, Affleck does a spot-on impression of him. "He's a great mimic," Goldenberg said. After Goldenberg, a Northeast High and Temple alum, won his Academy Award, he told reporters that his experience working in his father's Philly deli helped to teach him the importance of keeping all of the plates spinning in his professional career.

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ used to be known as "Sen. Scarf. " This was during her days in the state Senate, where she served 14 years, and - as you likely figured out - almost always wore a scarf. These days, during her fifth term in Congress, she's wearing something else: a change of heart for a chance to make history. In November, even December, Schwartz seemed certain that she wouldn't challenge Tom Corbett for governor. Now she seems certain that she will. "It is my intention," she tells me, to give up her House seat and take on T.C. Why the change?

With a mere three weeks before the election, Joe Biden gave up campaigning in the battlegrounds of Colorado and Nevada Tuesday to remember his Senate Judiciary Committee and Amtrak pal, Arlen Specter. "I thought, 'What would Arlen do?' Arlen wouldn't have even thought about it. Arlen would have been there for me," the vice president told almost 1,500 mourners at Penn Valley's Har Zion Temple. Biden recalled how Specter continually pushed him. "I don't know why I did so much for Philadelphia.

THE FUNERAL for Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator, Arlen Specter, will be held at noon Tuesday at the Har Zion Temple, in Penn Valley. The synagogue is on Hagys Ford Road near Hollow. His burial will immediately follow at Shalom Memorial Park, on Pine Road near Byberry, in Huntingdon Valley. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to attend the funeral services, which are open to the public. Recording devices and cameras are prohibited. Specter's family asks that donations be contributed to Philadelphia University or another charity in lieu of flowers.

Rest in peace, Arlen Specter Even to a casual observer of the political landscape, it was evident that former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter "got it. " ("He defied political odds," Monday). "It" being that hard work, a focus on results, a willingness to compromise, and an emphasis on people, not party, was the correct path. While no one would expect to agree with all of his positions, one had to admire his sense of conviction. If his style and methodology were to inspire even a few of today's political hacks to set aside their partisan tunnel vision for the greater good, this country would certainly have the opportunity to get to a better place.

I was thinking of Arlen Specter while watching this year's first presidential debate, reflecting on how rarely these gaffe-avoidance exercises actually change anyone's preconceptions. The most one-sided political debate I've ever seen was during Pennsylvania's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 2010. Specter, the longtime incumbent, simply demolished his challenger, that seasoned old salt Joe Sestak. Specter was by turns the folksy Arlen, recalling his reverence during his modest Kansas upbringing for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the inspiration for his public life - well, that and symbolically getting his father the bonus promised for his service in the First World War - and the "snarlin' Arlen" who would reach for the jugular of any opponent, whatever his or her age or gender.

At least 1,500 people, including Vice President Biden, are expected at the funeral of former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter at noon Tuesday at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley. The 1 1/2-hour service at the Conservative synagogue will be followed by burial in Shalom Memorial Park in Huntingdon Valley. The service is open to the public, but cameras and recording devices are prohibited. Lower Merion Township police said they were anticipating a "phenomenal" amount of traffic for the service for one of America's most prominent politicians.

THOSE WATCHING Sen. Arlen Specter's long career in public service might at times have felt like they were watching a vigorous tennis match between admiration and disappointment. Admiration, for example, at his vote that torpedoed conservative Supreme Court candidate Robert Bork, then disappointment at his brutal questioning of Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas' hearing. Admiration for his intellect and command of issues, and disappointment at his curious "single-bullet theory" of the Kennedy assassination.

Arlen Specter was a fighter. He fought crime as a prosecutor. He fought political opponents as a U.S. senator. He fought cancer on more than one occasion. But most of all, he fought for the people of the adopted state that became dear to him - Pennsylvania. Specter died Sunday from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 82. Having been elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2004, Specter served in that office longer than anyone in Pennsylvania history.