New York ? President Clinton was hospitalized with chest pains and shortness of breath Friday and will undergo heart bypass surgery in an operation that could sideline the former president at the height of the campaign for the White House.

An angiogram showed that Clinton, who turned 58 two weeks ago, had significant blockage in his heart arteries but did not suffer a heart attack, a doctor who performed the test told The Associated Press.

Clinton said he was looking forward to completing the surgery and resuming his normal activities. “Let me just say this, Republicans aren’t the only people who want four more years here,” he told CNN’s “Larry King Live” Friday evening.

Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that the former president would have surgery early next week and that no further information about his condition would be released until the operation is finished.

“I wanted to report to you that my husband is doing very well,” she said outside New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia, where the former president is being treated. “He’s in great humor. He’s beating all of us at cards and the rest of the games we’re playing.”

In bypass surgery, a new piece of blood vessel, usually taken from the patient’s leg, is sewn into place to create a detour around a blockage. Patients typically spend three to five days in the hospital and are encouraged to be fairly active right away.

Clinton had agreed to campaign for Democrat John Kerry in the two months to go before the election, and had appeared at some Democratic Party events.

He awaited the operation at the hospital in upper Manhattan, not far from his Harlem office.

The former president blamed the blockage in part on genetics but also said he “may have done some damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate.”