With your departure from the Republican Party, there are no more Jewish Republicans in the Senate. Do you care about that? I sure do. There’s still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.  Which seems about as likely at this point as Jerry Seinfeld’s joining the Senate. Well, it was about as likely as my becoming a Democrat.  Many women can never forgive you for your aggressive questioning of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Do you regret your behavior? No. When a serious charge is made like sexual harassment, the subject is entitled to question the accuser and find out the facts, and that’s what I did.  You and Bob Dole share a hometown, Russell, Kan. What do they put in the water there? Debaters’ tonic. Russell is famous for its high-school debate championship teams.  Did you know Dole in your Kansas days? No. When I moved to Russell in the eighth grade, he was much older, but in the intervening years I’ve pretty much caught up to him.  I assume this was before he was appearing on television in Viagra commercials. From reliable sources, he did not need Viagra then.  I see you have an essay in the current issue of The New York Review of Books. Is this your first article for it? Yes.  It’s a liberal publication. I knew something was up when I saw your byline. Well, the factual material for that article was developed over the past eight years.  Since the article is a criticism of the Bush administration and its grab for power, why did you wait until Bush left office to publish it? It would have been forceful if you had published it when he was still president. Everything in that article I said years ago. I challenged the Terrorist Surveillance Program in Judiciary Committee hearings, which I chaired. I introduced legislation to stop signing statements and I pressed hard to subpoena the telephone-company executives on their participation in the program.  You’re 79 and you’ve endured two bouts of Hodgkin’s disease. Why would you want to run for re-election? Don’t forget my brain tumors or my bypass surgery or the incorrect diagnosis of A.L.S. on the list of my maladies. But I’m full of vim, vigor and vitality. Just check my schedule.  This article is scheduled to appear on Mother’s Day. Is there anything to be said about your mother? My mother, Lillie Specter, was an angel and totally uninterested in politics. She was totally devoted to her family, and my father was almost totally devoted to reading a newspaper called Der Tog, which is Yiddish for “the day.”  What would she say about your becoming a Democrat? She would say, “Whatever you want to do, but why don’t you take life a little easier?”  INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY DEBORAH SOLOMON  The “Questions For” column on Page 15 this weekend quotes Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who recently switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, as saying that the courts in Minnesota still have time to “do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.” Former Senator Coleman, a Republican, is contesting the results of a protracted recount of last November’s election that show a narrow victory by his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. Senator Specter “conclusively misspoke,” he admitted to Congressional Quarterly after The Times article became available online on Tuesday, explaining, “In the swirl of moving from one caucus to another, I have to get used to my new teammates.”  A version of this interview appears in print on , on Page MM15 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: The Convert. Today's Paper|Subscribe
The newest Democratic senator talks about leaving his party, questioning Anita Hill and why he still wants Norm Coleman to beat Al Franken.