espite the urging of his supporters to stay in the race for the US Senate, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made the right decision Friday to step aside.
Although polls continued to show a virtual dead heat between him and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the mayor's recently announced personal problems were sure eventually to work against him.
Giuliani's April 27 announcement that he has prostate cancer may have temporarily enhanced his political image by softening the hard edge he conveyed to many voters, and thus drawing a few undecideds to his cause.
But, after the initial wave of sincere sympathy subsided, a sense of reality would have set in, giving rise to questions about whether Giuliani would be physically able to serve in the Senate. He himself had to ponder that question during the past few days.
He had also to consider the political fallout from his disclosure that he and his wife, Donna Hanover, are separating - and Hanover's angry assertion to the media that her husband had had an affair with a member of his staff.
If Giuliani had decided that he could continue his campaign while receiving treatment for his prostate cancer - and accepted the state Republican Party's nomination at its May 30 convention - he would have been making a big decision not only for himself, but for the New York GOP.
If Giuliani had appeared to weaken physically as the campaign went on, voters would have noticed. Some undecided voters previously leaning toward him might have opted to stay home on election day rather than vote for someone they feared could not vigorously represent their state in Washington, D.C.
Giuliani's physical and emotional endurance might have been severely tested with ongoing stories and questions about his marital problems, which in turn may have raised even tougher questions about his character and values.
Recent polls suggest New Yorkers in general were not particularly judgmental of Giuliani's extramarital involvements, but there also may be an undercurrent of concern that those matters could have made him less effective as a senator.
No doubt other senators with marital problems have managed to survive, and sometimes even thrive, in Washington. But still others have lost reelection bids for having similar problems.
His personal problems aside, Giuliani would have faced daunting challenges if he had made it to the Senate. While he is generally credited with driving down crime in the city, he has also been sharply criticized for his handling of two highly publicized cases involving the city's police force and officers brutalizing two unarmed men.
In the Abner Louima case, a white officer was convicted of sodomizing a Haitian immigrant with a broom handle in the police station's bathroom, and three other white officers were convicted of trying to cover up the crime.
In the case of Amadou Diallo, four white officers fired 41 bullets at an unarmed West African immigrant as he stood at the entrance of his Bronx apartment. All four were acquitted in Diallo's death.
Giuliani's show of support for the police in these incidents, and his apparent lack of genuine remorse for the victims and their families, brought heavy criticism from the city's black community, from liberals, and from some moderates. He said at a recent town hall meeting that, in retrospect, he would have handled the matters differently, including being more sensitive to the victims' families. But those comments did not change the views of his critics.
In essence, Giuliani's problems would probably have worn down his candidacy. It had become apparent that while his closest supporters still hoped he would run, other key Republicans had already begun to look for a replacement candidate.
On Friday, US Representative Rick Lazio, the Long Island moderate who had originally been forced to the sidelines to make way for Giuliani's candidacy, was back in the race. He became the instant front-runner for the GOP nomination. Governor George Pataki, another popular Republican in the state, has indicated he supports a Lazio bid.
Wall Street billionaire financier Theodore Forstmann has also been mentioned as a possible candidate.
As the GOP mulls its options, Clinton is moving along in a campaign that resembles her husband's - events just seem to go their way.
When less than two years ago, few New Yorkers gave her a chance, today another Clinton has become the one to beat.
Robert A. Jordan is a Globe columnist.
