Business as usual, explains Santorum, but pundits suggest the junior senator from Pennsylvania is shifting left while ramping up to his ’06 campaign for a third term, according to a report in The Morning Call.

Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, remains the Democrats’ top incumbent target in 2006 – with early polls showing Casey ahead or dead even with the incumbent.

As to his unlikely alliances with Clinton and Kerry, Santorum said no sea-change there: "If you find some common ground, you seize it.”

As to backing off capital punishment, Santorum explains that it had nothing to do with political expediencies but the number of convictions overturned with DNA evidence that convinced him the penalty should be used sparingly.

"I don't run around looking to do the politically sensitive thing or what the polls tell me,” Santorum said.

Such was apparently the case when Santorum visited the late Terri Shiavo’s father shortly before her death. Polls were showing that the majority of Americans opposed Congress getting involved.

"I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do,” Santorum said of his involvement. "That's what motivates me.”

But Democratic Party officials like Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, charge that the new face is all about next year's Senate showdown with Democrat Bob Casey, the state treasurer and son of former Gov. Robert P. Casey.

"There's a lot of talk aimed at softening his hard edges,” said Singer, "But when push comes to shove, he goes the other way.”

As to one of those reported hard edges, his support of cuts in Medicaid, Santorum doesn’t appear to be shifting anywhere. While seven Republican senators crossed party lines to restore the funding, Santorum has remained firm, saying Medicaid's growth is unsustainable.

"If governors are that pathetic in not finding savings in this program of four-tenths of 1 percent over five years, then shame on the governors,” Santorum retorted. "That's the way I look at it.”

Pennsylvania political analysts G. Terry Madonna and Mike Young dispute Santorum’s explanations that he simply votes his conscience, pointing out that in their opinion the senator has a history of moving to the left just before elections.

"He's a cultural conservative,” Madonna said, "but people don't understand how pragmatic and politically opportunistic he can be.”

Furthermore, Madonna argues that Democrats underestimate his pragmatic side in their zeal to highlight Santorum as an ideological zealot.

That pragmatic side has thus far been useful to Santorum: