EW YORK - The melodrama that is the New York Senate race took another sharp turn yesterday as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that he and his wife of 16 years are separating.
Last night, one well-placed Republican said Giuliani would drop out of the contest. However, his campaign manager, Bruce Teitelbaum, said the Senate run ''remains all-systems-go.''
The events mark the latest of several recent developments that are transforming the country's hottest political race into a chronicle of one man's emotional roller-coaster of a life.
In just the past few weeks:
Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
His wife, Donna Hanover, canceled her role in a stage production of ''The Vagina Monologues,'' to avoid embarrassing her husband's campaign.
The mayor confirmed reports that he has been seeing another woman, whom he called ''a very good friend.''
Yesterday, after Giuliani said he and Hanover are discussing a formal separation, Hanover made her own statement, all but confirming rumors that Giuliani had an affair a few years ago with one of his staff members.
''There has never been a campaign like this in New York,'' said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political consultant. ''The state that gave us Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Wagner, and Bobby Kennedy is now serving up a soap opera.''
Nobody knows what effect these developments will have on the election.
On one hand, Giuliani cannot be lambasted for hypocrisy. He has never been a ''family values'' Republican.
On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton can no longer be lambasted for her husband's morals by ''family values'' foes.
On the one hand, Giuliani might have so alienated the state's most conservative voters that they will cast their ballots for a third-party candidate or simply stay home.
On the other hand, Clinton has no way to go on the attack, partly because of her own glass house, partly because it may be unseemly to attack a man with cancer.
A poll indicates 77 percent of New Yorkers consider Giuliani's reported affair a private matter. However, 12 percent say it makes them less likely to vote for Giuliani, which could be crucial in a race that is already neck-and-neck.
It has long been known that Giuliani's marriage is shaky. He and Hanover, an actress and an anchorwoman on TV's Food Channel, have rarely been seen together for three years. Their relationship has been so openly tense that, after reporters asked Hanover how she voted in the 1997 mayoral election, she replied, ''No comment.''
The marriage, which was visibly affectionate when Giuliani was first elected in 1993, took a bad turn around the time rumors spread that the mayor was having an affair with his press spokeswoman, Christyne Lategano.
In a statement that she tearily read outside Gracie Mansion, where she lives with their two children, Hanover said, ''For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy's public life because of his relationship with one staff member.''
She did not mention anyone by name. Lategano resigned more than a year ago. Giuliani appointed her to head the city's tourist bureau, and she has since married.
Hanover also revealed that she made a ''major effort'' to save the marriage last May and that she and Giuliani ''reestablished some of our personal intimacy through the fall,'' but then, he ''chose another path.''
The Daily News revealed last week that Giuliani has been dining out regularly with a woman not his wife. The New York Post then identified her as Judith Nathan, a 45-year-old Upper East Side divorcee, and added that they have been seeing each other for nearly a year.
Giuliani, in his shaky-voiced statement yesterday, said, ''I'm very sad, I feel terrible.'' He called Hanover ''a wonderful woman ... a wonderful mother. ... Who knows why these things happen?''
He also called Nathan ''a very very fine person'' who ''helps me a great deal,'' adding, ''I'm going to need her now maybe more than I did before.''
