KEY POINTS:
Rudy Giuliani, the one-time Republican presidential frontrunner now struggling to keep up with his competitors, used a Christmas visit to a children's shelter in Harlem to offer one small piece of good news - he is free of the prostate cancer that forced him to put his national political ambitions on hold seven years ago.
The 63-year-old former New York Mayor insisted he was in good health - despite a scare last week when he was forced to suspend his schedule and spend the night in a Missouri hospital after experiencing what his aides first described as "flu-like symptoms" and then said was a severe headache.
"I'm perfectly healthy. I don't have cancer," Giuliani told reporters jammed into the Hale House shelter, where he has read a Christmas story to children every year since he first became mayor 14 years ago.
Giuliani said he was tested three weeks ago and the PSA levels in his prostate - an indicator of cancer - were "zero or negligible". "I knew I didn't have cancer," Giuliani said, "but I wanted to be sure."
Yesterday his doctor, Valentin Fuster, declared the Republican candidate to be "in very good health" after passing various medical tests.
Giuliani's statement is unlikely to allay concerns about the state of his campaign generally.
He has lost ground across the country, for what is increasingly being seen as a one-note campaign focused on his performance after the September 11 attacks, and for a risky political strategy essentially writing off the first two contests.
Mitt Romney has caught up with him in polls nationally, and Mike Huckabee is way ahead in the early contests.
Giuliani has also been harmed by the resurgence of John McCain. The senator, not Giuliani, is emerging as the gravitas figure to turn to if Huckabee seizes the momentum in Iowa and New Hampshire.
- INDEPENDENT
