The AP has one last post-mortem of Arlen Specter's Senate career:

Specter is unlikely to go down in history as one of the great U.S. senators. But he was widely regarded as a smart, tireless and effective legislator who used his seniority to work the levers of power to serve constituents and bring home tax dollars.

Intellectually, he was head and shoulders above most of his fellow senators and showed a serious national engagement, beyond just taking care of constituents, said Stephen Hess, a former presidential adviser and a senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"We used to tend to measure our senators on whether they were a showhorse or a workhorse," Hess said. "It's fair to say that he was both."

Photo: Arlen Specter rode the Reagan wave into the Senate in 1980, beating former Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty. AP/Washington Post photo.