Rudy Giuliani Statement

Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani said Monday that his health is excellent despite battling prostate cancer in 2000.

“I'm doing great,” the former New York City mayor said in an interview on CNBC's “Kudlow & Company.” “My PSA is low, nonexistent. I'm cancer-free, I have been for six years. I'm extremely healthy and energetic.”
PSA, or prostate specific antigen, is a marker used to track prostate cancer growth. Giuliani dropped out of a campaign for the U.S. Senate after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2000.

Giuliani, who will be 63 in May, leads a crowded GOP field of 2008 candidates in national polls. He said the demanding schedule of a presidential candidate hasn't slowed him down.

“I just got back on a red eye from California and I do four or five speeches, fundraisers, meetings a day – sometimes six,” Giuliani said. “So, I've got tremendous energy.”

Giuliani also acknowledged the presidential campaign is likely to be his last opportunity for elective office.

“But for me to campaign, this is the year I have to do it,” Giuliani said. “And back in 2000, I realized that (I would) have to be a part-time or a quarter-time candidate and that just would have been ... unfair.”



DENVER – CNN commentator Bay Buchanan said Monday she will temporarily oversee the presidential campaign of Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo and has resigned from the cable network.

Buchanan said she will function as campaign manager until someone is appointed to that job.

Tancredo said last week he had not yet formally decided whether to run.

“I'm certainly encouraging it,” Buchanan said. She said she expects Tancredo to formally announce his plans in the next week or so.

Tancredo, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, has described himself as an alternative for GOP voters unhappy with other Republicans. He has staked out conservative positions on social issues, opposing abortion rights, gay marriage and federal financing of embryonic stem cell research.

Tancredo has conceded he is an underdog, but Buchanan said his campaign was a serious bid for the presidency and not merely an attempt to force the hands of better-known GOP candidates on immigration.

“I believe Tom Tancredo can beat the top three and that's what our campaign plan is,” Buchanan said, citing Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Buchanan managed the three presidential campaigns of her brother, conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan, in 1992, 1996 and 2000. She is chairwoman of Team America, a political action group Tancredo founded to advocate for tougher border security.



DES MOINES, Iowa – Presidential hopeful Sam Brownback on Monday predicted his meager poll numbers would grow quickly as more Republicans compare his solidly conservative record with the stands of better-known rivals.

“The Republican base is built around a series of principles, not personalities,” said Brownback. “It's built around a series of ideas and they believe very firmly in those ideas.”

Brownback was in Iowa for a series of meetings with Republican activists and lawmakers, making the case that the party must turn to a conservative voice if it wants to hold the White House next year.

Most polls show that the leading Republican candidates are former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That's despite deep suspicion about the three among the party's influential religious conservative base.

The Kansas senator argued that suspicion will cause the polls to move in his favor.

“As the campaign progresses and matures, those principles will become more apparent as people choose their candidates to vote for,” said Brownback.



MANCHESTER, N.H. – Pat Buchanan and Gary Hart on Monday defended New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary status.

More than half the states have considered moving their primaries forward to raise their political profile. Critics say that the entire primary process could be over on Feb. 5 and create a nine-month, head-to-head general election.

“If you hold a national primary, it'll be a validation of a Gallup poll,” said Buchanan, a three-time presidential candidate who won New Hampshire's Republican primary in 1996.

The states moving forward, including California, are making a mistake, Hart said.

“It's so silly for California to think that by moving forward, they'll see more of the candidates,” said Hart, who won New Hampshire's Democratic primary in 1984.

Hart said New Hampshire should preserve its first-in-the-nation status to give underdog candidates a shot.

“If you take that away, the only people who can run for office are those with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars,” Hart said.

Both primary victors visited the state to accept awards from the New Hampshire Political Library, along with former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card.

A national primary, Card said, would not let candidates build momentum.

“If the Red Sox had to play the World Series game right after the preseason, the rest of the season, it's irrelevant,” Card said.



RALEIGH, N.C. – Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee compared his campaign Monday to that of another former Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, who was hardly a front-runner when he started his ultimately successful run for the White House.

“Clinton was not deterred,” Huckabee said Monday as he started a two-day fundraising tour of North Carolina. “He didn't stop when people were saying that nobody was going to nominate an unknown, southern governor.”

Clinton joined the Democratic field late in 1991, then went on to place a strong second in the 1992 New Hampshire primary before dominating the Super Tuesday voting to emerge as the nominee. Pundits and polls have placed Huckabee in the lower tier of the 2008 Republican field.

“For those who believe that this race is only going to be about a bunch of popular candidates, I point them back to the Bill Clinton race,” Huckabee said.

“This is like a NASCAR race,” he said. “The key for us is keeping four tires on the track. We're not worried about being a front-runner this early in the race.”

source:www.signonsandiego.com