ew York City's Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is giving the politics of cancer a whole new meaning. The mayor and would-be Republican candidate for US Senate recently announced that he has prostate cancer. It is treatable, but still, it is serious business.
The average person would be consumed with exploring treatment options and recalculating life expectancy, don't you think? Not Giuliani, who had all but announced a run against Hillary Rodham Clinton before the recent cancer diagnosis.
The mayor says his health issues are forcing him to refocus attention on the important things in life. But for Giuliani, the important things seem to include how to get as much political bang for the buck out of cancer.
He still hasn't decided if he's in the Senate race or out of it. But he has apparently decided that this is the perfect opportunity to acknowledge a relationship with a woman who is not his wife.
It's good news that cancer is no longer shameful nor viewed as an immediate or absolute death sentence. But there's something a little creepy about a person whose instincts include the urge to see how the diagnosis helps in a political campaign.
According to The New York Times, Giuliani, in the aftermath of the announcement about his illness, is unusually ''warm, solicitous, and even affectionate.'' An anonymous mayoral aide told the Times: ''He comes in in the morning and he'll throw his arm around one of the deputy mayors and give him a hug. He says hello to everyone and shakes everyone's hands. He seems happier. It's weird.''
Quite honestly, that part of Giuliani's reaction seems pretty normal.
You wake up one morning to learn you have a possibly terminal illness and many people - maybe not all - would decide to be nicer and sweeter. No matter what the doctors tell you about survivability, such a diagnosis can't help but move you toward thoughts about the speakers at your funeral and the epitaph on your gravestone. Do you want to be remembered as rough and tough or as loving and caring? Do you want mourners to recall only the people you kicked or also those you embraced? To me, the choice seems clear - puff pieces all around.
It's Giuliani's next instinct that seems a little weird.
Rumors about his relationships with other women have surfaced in the press before. In the past he denied having an affair with his press secretary. Shortly after he finds out he has cancer, he decides to publicly acknowledge that he has a ''very good'' female friend whom he met at a parent-teacher gathering. As he and his good friend traipse around Manhattan social events, he is asking voters for privacy and understanding.
It makes you wonder, is this an average calculation for the average politician? ''Oh great, I've got cancer. People will feel sorry for me. This seems like the perfect moment to tell everyone about another woman in my life.''
Not to be too irreverent or parochial, but perhaps this is a totally New York phenomenon.
When issues of politics and personal health intersect in Massachusetts, the result is nowhere near as operatic. For example, the late Paul Tsongas chose not to seek another US Senate term to battle the cancer that claimed his life years later.
Giuliani is a different kind of politician with a different kind of wife. They live separate lives, which is no one's business but their own, except when they make it everyone's business.
Giuliani's wife, Donna Hanover, is a former broadcast journalist. Her latest career endeavor - until she decided to postpone it - was a starring role in a play called ''The Vagina Monologues.'' The play was written by a good friend of Mrs. Clinton's - Giuliani's opponent if he goes ahead with his Senate campaign. It's hard to imagine Tom and Angela Menino having a political and personal life as complicated as all that!
Then again, as Giuliani calculates the pros and cons of cancer on a political campaign, we all know Hillary is doing the same thing. You can just hear the political wheels turning on the first lady's side.
Let's see: Cancer softens the Giuliani image, so it's a plus for him unless the treatment is debilitating enough to make him look too weak to go to Washington. That could hurt him on Election Day.
Needless to say, as a political issue, marriage is a wash for both of them. The less said, the better.
Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist.
