Republican leaders said yesterday they’re counting on Mayor Giuliani to stay in the Senate race as he fights prostate cancer.
Gov. Pataki, who joined the mayor at a Holocaust-memorial service at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, said, “My hope is that the mayor will find that, from a medical standpoint, he’s healthy and that he can go forward, because I think he’d make a great senator.”
Giuliani, who has indicated his medical condition will determine whether he continues his race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, also told reporters after the service, “I’ve been thinking about health more than I’ve been thinking about politics.”
But he said that even though he’s cut back on political appearances while he consults with doctors, his campaign is not suffering because he’s got a great understudy in Sen. John McCain, who has been filling in for him.
“John is a wonderful man, and I think it might actually be better if he did the campaigning and I stayed at home,” the mayor said with a chuckle.
“It probably would work out better. He’s a much better campaigner.”
Standing in for the mayor on ABC’s “This Week,” McCain predicted Giuliani will stay in the race.
“I’m confident that he will be back,” McCain said. “The odds are overwhelming that he’ll be fine and that he will be very active and I believe he’ll win.”
An article in Newsweek has quoted an unidentified Pataki ally as saying Giuliani’s illness could provide him with the “honorable out” he wants in the Senate campaign and allow him to fulfill his real dream – running for governor in 2002.
The mayor wouldn’t comment on the quote, except to say his cancer is “not an opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Giuliani’s campaign manager, Bruce Teitlebaum said, “It’s not only my hope, but my expectation, that he will run [for the Senate].
“Hopefully he’ll pick a course of treatment that will give him a cure, a complete cure and then we’ll be able to move forth aggressively, with a winning campaign.”