Round one in the prostate-cancer story goes to Senator John Kerry. The first test for any presidential candidate with medical problems is how he handles questions about his illness. When he went before the press in an open and forthright manner late Tuesday afternoon to announce that he has prostate cancer, Kerry managed the event superbly. When Boston Globe reporter Glen Johnson queried Kerry on why he hadn’t answered a question about his health honestly 10 days ago when a reporter (presumably Johnson) asked him if he was sick, Kerry turned the tables on Johnson.

"Because members of my family had not been told," Kerry answered, noting that "members of my family deserve to learn before the media" and that family is more important than a newspaper’s "headline." It was a strong answer, one that indicates Kerry will be able to handle the scores of attacks that will be hurled at him by both his Democratic opponents and Republicans in a presidential campaign.

But Kerry still has a long way to go — politically, that is — before his campaign recovers the strength it had before his surprise announcement. (It goes without saying that Kerry’s true test came Wednesday — after the Phoenix went to press — when he underwent surgery. Conservative columnist and prostate-cancer survivor Robert Novak noted on CNN that the senator would be "back and running for president before he knows it.") News of illness has a way of breaking a political campaign. New Hampshire secretary of state William Gardner, speaking in January, said he believes that former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley’s experience with an irregular heartbeat on December 10, 1999 — just as his presidential candidacy was surging — sucked the momentum out of his New Hampshire–primary campaign. Coming less than three years after the death of former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas, who had assured New Hampshire voters he was healthy prior to his 1992 primary victory, the heart incident raised concerns in New Hampshire voters. "Bradley was leading Gore, then he had two or three episodes," notes Gardner. "People would be sensitive to that [from] when Tsongas was running here."

That said, political observers maintain that managing the information is key. Arizona senator John McCain, for example, delivered a document dump of his medical records — including psychiatric evaluations — going back 40 years when questions were raised about his numerous ailments, most specifically in the form of a whispering campaign that impugned his mental health. (Subsequently, he was treated for skin cancer.) Bradley, by contrast, chose to release medical information on a question-by-question basis. "If we had put out the medical records six months before and everyone had known that this condition existed, I don’t believe it would have changed what happened on the day we had to suspend the campaign," said Bradley campaign manager Gina Glantz at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics symposium on the 2000 election.

Kerry seems to understand the need for candor. "I will make the doctor’s report available to all of you," he told reporters.

If Kerry follows through on his assurances and recovers as expected, he will likely avoid Bradley’s fate. Kerry is probably helped by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s experience with prostate cancer. How many Americans, for example, thought Giuliani’s illness hindered him in leading New York in the days after September 11? And then there’s Vice-President Dick Cheney, who had suffered three heart attacks — and had a quadruple bypass — by the time he became vice-president. At this point, there’s no reason to think Kerry’s candidacy is over.