SCHIEFFER: And we're back now with Senator Arlen Specter , the newest member of the Democratic Party. He did the old switch-a-roo this week. Left his party, the Republican Party, and became a Democrat.

Senator, thank you for joining us.

SPECTER: Thank you.

SCHIEFFER: I was just talking to these health officials about this flu and how it -- was there a danger it might mutate into something more dangerous. I want to ask you, do you feel that your switch to the Democratic Party, could that mutate into something even more dangerous for Republicans? Have you talked to anybody who has said to you, you know, I'm going to follow your example? Or is this just a one-time deal that pertains only to you?

SPECTER: Bob, it would be my hope that, as was reported in the New York Times last week, that this would be a wake-up call and the party would move for a broader big tent like we had under Reagan.

The party has changed so much since I was elected in 1980. And now, when I cast a vote with the Democrats on the stimulus package, that one vote created a precipitous drop so that I was looking at a situation where the prospects were very bleak to win a Republican primary, and I simply was not going to put my 29-year record before the Republican primary electorate.

But it would be my hope that we can maintain a strong two-party system and we'll stop the business of what the Club for Growth has been doing to defeating moderates in the primary and then losing the general elections.

SCHIEFFER: You said that you will not be, although you've become a Democrat now, that you would not be an automatic vote for Barack Obama . Tell me some of the things where you differ with this president and with Democrats, Senator?

SPECTER: Well, Bob, I have said that, and my record of independence is present as a Republican. And I still intend to represent the people of Pennsylvania and what is good for my state and for the country.

One illustration is the legislation on employees' choice, which is also known as card check, which would eliminate the secret ballot and also provide for mandatory arbitration. Now, while I feel there's a need for a labor law reform, I'm not for that legislation. That's a primary item on the president's agenda, and the president knows that.

When the president invited me to the White House with Vice President Biden to endorse my candidacy, he said that he knew I would -- he said he would be looking for my advice, especially when I disagreed with him. So it's not a secret.

SCHIEFFER: That, of course, is legislation that is very dear to organized labor right now, and the people who are critical of that say that it really eliminates the secret vote on people when they want to decide whether to become a member of a union or to organize a union within their company.

But let me move on to something else. Your colleague Orrin Hatch, a member of the Judiciary Committee, as are you, said this morning on "Meet the Press" that when President Obama said last week that he would look for somebody, an empathetic person, a person who was empathetic, to replace David Souter, who is resigning from the Supreme Court, that that was just a code word, a code word for saying he wanted somebody who would be an activist, somebody who would basically legislate from the bench.

How do you come down on that? What kind of person do you think President Obama ought to nominate to the court?

SPECTER: Bob, I don't think that President Obama is using code words. I think that the Constitution has evolved on our values. When the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause was enacted, the galleries in the Senate were segregated. Now we have integration.

I'd be looking for someone with strong educational and professional background. I'd like to see more diversity. I think another woman would be good. I think that ultimately maybe now we need an Hispanic. African-Americans are underrepresented. And we can expect under our constitutional process to have very probing questions for the president's nominee to make sure that there will be respect for the Constitution and public policy in the Congress, and not to make law but to interpret the law.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just cut to the chase here. Would you favor anyone on the court who was not pro-choice on the question of abortion?

SPECTER: I would not use a litmus test, Bob. I supported Scalia and Rehnquist and I've supported Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Breyer, who are pro-choice.

I would draw the line, as I did with Judge Bork, when I opposed Judge Bork years ago, if they're out of the mainstream on the totality of circumstances, but not on a single issue.

SCHIEFFER: Now, you have said that you would support somebody or would not support someone, you just said, who was out of the mainstream. But I've also heard you say that you thought it might be time to have -- I believe the word you used was a statesman. Not necessarily somebody who had been on an appeals court or had been a judge before.

SPECTER: Well, I was asked if I'd like to see a politician on the core, and I modified that in line with Adlai Stevenson's statement. You know, a statesman is a dead politician.

But I would like to see somebody with broader experience. You've got everybody on the Supreme Court has been on the court of appeals. That means their experiences are limited. We have a very diverse country. We need more people to express a woman's point of view or a minority point of view, Hispanic or African-American, so that somebody who has done something more than wear a black robe for most of their lives.

SCHIEFFER: I didn't know this until some time ago, and I think a lot of people in this country are not aware that the Constitution does not say that a member of the Supreme Court has to be an attorney. Could you envision being for someone on the court who was not a lawyer?

SPECTER: I could. Mark Hatfield, the senator, was a person whom -- I talked to Mark years ago and said somebody like that, Mark Hatfield who was a college professor, Mark Hatfield was a governor. He was a senator for many years. He had a deep understanding of the Constitution and many other disciplines. And when you come right down to it, that kind of diversity is -- with the right person, it would have to be the right person -- but I think it's a possibility.

Listen, the framers didn't require a lawyer. They had that understanding.

SCHIEFFER: Let me talk to you about a little politics here, while we're at it. I want to ask you about the Republican Party, but let me also ask you this. A lot of people, I would assume, voted for you in your last Senate race because you were a Republican. Do you feel in any way that you let them down or that you had some obligation to them to switch now? It's one thing to say, you know, you've come up to the election and say I want to announce I'm going to run as a Democrat the next time out, but to just switch parties in midstream, does that bother you, Senator?

SPECTER: Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn't want me as their candidate. But as a matter of principle, I'm becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats' approach.

And one of the items that I'm working on, Bob, is funding for medical research. I've been the spear carrier to increase medical research. And I've even established a Web site, Specterforthecure.com, to try to get people to put more pressure on Congress to join me in getting more funding.

This medical research has been a reawakening to (ph) $10 billion. We were about to lose a whole generation of scientists. And now they're enthused. There are 15,000 applications to be granted.

SPECTER: If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.

Now, as the New York Times pointed out in a column today, when you talk about life and death and medical research, that's a much more major consideration on what I can do, continuing in the Senate, contrasted with which party I belong to.

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about the Republican Party. What is it -- what is it that's wrong with the Republican Party now?

Obviously, they're going through, kind of, a phase here, where some people say it ought to be more purified. Others are saying it ought to be broadened. You have a lot of the people on talk radio who seem to be driving a lot of this.

If you were advising the Republicans, what would you -- what would you say to them to say, you know, I wouldn't have left the party if you had done X or Y or Z?

SPECTER: I would tell the party to take the advice of Senator Olympia Snowe, who wrote an op-ed column earlier this week. I would say to the Republican Party, don't listen to the Club for Growth.

That is a group which has, in a knowing way, defeated moderate Republicans in the primary, knowing that they would lose in the general election, because purity is more important than Republicans in office.

If you take Linc Chafee's case, Bob, Linc Chafee was defeated by the Club for Growth. Had Linc been elected to the Senate in 2006, we would have had -- there would have been Republican control in 2007 and 2008.

Instead there were 34 vacancies left open that President Bush could not -- could not confirm, so that I would say, try to bring back the party that -- of the Reagan big tent, that I joined back in 1980, when you had Heinz and Weicker and Mathias and John Chafee and Mark Hatfield and Jack Danforth. The room was full of moderate Republicans.

If you have the big tent; if you say -- listen, I voted 10,000 times. One vote, the stimulus package vote, I was ostracized, created a schism. I don't expect people to agree with all my votes. I don't agree with them all, at this point. But you've got to have some latitude.

SCHIEFFER: What did you say? Did you just say you don't agree with all your votes?

SPECTER: No, I voted 10,000 times, Bob. I don't agree with all of them at this point, as I have rethunk many -- many issues.

SCHIEFFER: That does beg the question. Which ones are you sorry you cast?

(LAUGHTER)

SPECTER: Well, I don't really want to -- want to start to pick them out. I don't regret any of the major votes. I'm pleased with where I stand. But why -- why pick out one vote and say a guy is no longer fit to be the candidate for the party?

SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Senator, we have to stop right there, and we hope to have you back soon. I'm sure there will be a lot of issues you're going to be involved in we'll want to talk to you about.

SPECTER: Always good.

SCHIEFFER: We'll be back in just a moment.

SPECTER: Always good to talk to you, Bob Schieffer.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you, sir.