the morning line

Rudy!

• The Post stokes Giuliani’s presidential fire by reporting that the ex-mayor leads Hillary 48 to 43 percent nationwide and ties her in “blue states” (including New York). Don’t ever stop printing those, lest he change his mind! [NYP]
• Four gay couples have already not-quite-married in New Jersey, which on Monday became the third state in our fair country to offer civil unions. (Why just now and not Monday? There’s a 72-hour waiting period.) In Asbury Park, the mayor officiated. [WNBC]
• Here’s a nice little companion item to yesterday’s report that Manhattan workers take home twice the national average in wages: They also, according to a strangely balanced-sounding statistic, pay 47 percent more in taxes. [MetroNY]
• Having solved every problem that has ever plagued the State of New York, the Assembly turns its attention to the inadequate enforcement of the “pooper scooper” law within the city. Apparently, a $50 to $100 fine is not enough of a deterrent to the cash-rich Manhattanites (see previous item). Would a $250 one help? [amNY]
• Dr. Denton Sayer Cox, a onetime prominent physician who treated Andy Warhol, is hospitalized himself after a stranger beat and burned him with an unknown chemical in his Upper East Side triplex. Police allege, and the News relishes, a gay pickup gone awry. [NYDN]

Rudy!