If Democratic candidate Christine Quinn had run against Rudy Giuliani in 1992, she would have "kicked his ass," she joked, during a panel discussion on Monday night.

Speaker Quinn, a favorite in the 2013 Mayoral run, made the comments at a Forum Law, Culture & Society discussion on the topic of same-sex marriage and gay rights.

During the discussion the moderator Thane Rosenbaum put it to Quinn that a run against Giuliani would have been tough, Capital New York reports.

"Running against Giuliani in '92, for you, would have been harder," he said to Quinn.

"I would have kicked his ass," Quinn responded, amid applause and laughter.

When questioned about her remarks on Tuesday the Mayoral favorite fobbed it off as a joke.

“Obviously, we’re very soon going to be in the thick of a real mayor’s race, not one that’s hypothetical that one can make kind of flippant, offhand jokes about,” she said.

During Monday night’s forum, Quinn weighed in on Jodie Foster’s Golden Globe speech, where the award winning actress spoke about being gay in Hollywood.

"Watching her," Quinn said, "it was so painful. I mean it was really painful. Which reminds us even in 2013, even post-'Will and Grace,' even when you have the president of the United States look in the lens of a national TV camera and say he is for marriage equity, unbelievable, when he was not sky-rocketing in the polls—make no mistake—that was not a brilliant political move by any stretch of the imagination, but he did it.

"Even with all of that, and even with all of her money and her fame and whatever, it's still hard for people to come out. We need to remember that."

New York Times Columnist Frank Bruni, Emmy-winning Actress Debra Messing and Emmy-winning Producer Max Mutchnick also took part in the panel discussion.