HITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Not that it surprised anyone, but New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani yesterday finally stated outright that he is running for the US Senate.
After a stump speech on the porch of the clapboard house that serves as Westchester County Republican headquarters, Giuliani was asked if he was an official candidate.
''I don't know what an official candidate is,'' he said. ''I am very interested in running. I am running. Look what I'm doing, I'm not walking. ... Give me a break, I'm running.''
Though Giuliani has long been campaigning and was the obvious Republican candidate to oppose Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, he had not said, ''I'm running,'' until yesterday.
Last Sunday, while making the rounds of political talk shows, he found various ways to avoid it, coming closest when he said ''Looks that way'' when a questioner asked if he planned to run. But he also said, ''There's always doubt.''
His campaign manager, Bruce Teitelbaum, said yesterday that the mayor's statement ''should not be construed as his official announcement.''
''This may be the first time he's said those words but he's said that kind of thing before,'' Teitelbaum said. ''No decision has been made on an official announcement and there may not be one.''
But the Westchester GOP was impressed. ''Maybe we'll put up a plaque,'' said county chairman Jim Cavanaugh. He said the mayor told lunch companions after his statement that he didn't want to make ''a Hollywood-style announcement.''
Clinton campaign spokeswoman Karen Dunn said, ''We welcome the mayor to the race. Maybe now he will start talking about what he would do as a United States senator.''
Clinton made her formal announcement Sunday, in a college gymnasium packed with thousands of supporters and bedecked with red, white, and blue posters. Giuliani's statement yesterday came before about 150 people, many of them local Republican officials, on the porch, the snow-covered lawn and sidewalk outside the house on Mamaroneck Avenue.
In his speech, the mayor poked fun at Clinton's house-hunting in Westchester.
When he walked to the microphones to chants of ''Rudy, Rudy,'' he said, ''I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'm just hanging around here looking for a house.''
He also suggested that if Clinton loses the race, she might leave the family's new home in nearby Chappaqua.
''Around Jan. 1, I'm going to need a place to live, and I understand there may be a house on the market around here,'' he said.
Asked if he accepted Clinton as a New York resident, he hesitated and said, ''OK. You figure it out. You figure out if she's really a resident.''
