Sen. Arlen Specter says, “I’ve got to get my hair back.”

This is yesterday. He is sitting in his private, hideaway office behind the U.S. Senate chamber, surrounded by four walls of mementos from his long, long career in politics.

He looks pale and frail. His gray-plaid suit seems to hang on his shoulders. And, yes, he is quite bald.

Two weeks after completing a debilitating, three-month regimen of chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease, the 78-year-old Republican pronounces himself in “good physical shape” and says he has an “excellent” chance of full recovery.

There’s probably a better chance of a snow squall on this steamy July morning in Washington than that Specter – a former prosecutor and a renowned political infighter – will admit any weakness. “I’m at the top of my game,” he says.

Specter, who first was elected in 1980, has had repeated medical troubles, starting with a benign brain tumor diagnosed in 1993. He had radiation treatments in 1996 and a heart bypass operation in 1998. He was first diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a type of blood cancer, in 2005. The disease returned in April.

Already the longest-serving senator in Pennsylvania history, he fully intends to run for a sixth term in 2010.