The crowd on hand at the Hermitage Municipal Building appeared to run out of gas before Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter did.

Specter, Pennsylvania's senior senator from Philadelphia, stopped Wednesday evening in the Shenango Valley for a town-hall meeting.

Before Specter, 72, started fielding questions from the audience, he asked those with questions to raise their hands and then promised the 27 who did that he would answer each of their questions.

The crowd, however, only asked him 25 -- and then Specter was back on the go, racing off behind schedule to the Youngstown airport.

While on recess from Congress this week, Specter has appeared at more than a dozen similar town-hall meetings across Pennsylvania. His stop in Hermitage on Wednesday was his fifth and final one of the day.

No one issue dominated the discussion during the Hermitage stop, according to the questions asked by the audience.

Somewhat surprisingly, the issue that generated the most local questions (3) was immigration. The only other issues that generated more than one question were prescription-drug coverage reform, veterans issues, business and industry in Pennsylvania, and the recent corporate collapses of large companies like Enron and WorldCom.

In all, the audience touched on about 20 separate issues. No one asked Specter any questions about terrorism or the crisis in the Middle East.

Prior to fielding questions from the audience, Specter said, "The main problem confronting Congress is one which is confronting our nation: terrorists."

Specter said he supports the creation of a cabinet-level department of Homeland Security, which would gather and coordinate intelligence information from numerous agencies within the government.

"Had we had all of the information from one source, 9/11 might have been prevented," Specter said. "The object is to prevent, not respond to attacks."