The Morning Read: Thursday, May 29, 2008

Ed Rendell says Hillary Clinton probably won't win.

Tom Coburn is offended by his friend Barack Obama.

Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal says Hillary Clinton "couldn't distinguish herself from Obama in any substantive way.”

Perry Bacon, Jr. of The Washington Post says Obama hasn’t distinguished himself from the Democratic Party’s policy positions.

The San Francisco Chronicle finds two poems Obama wrote as an undergraduate.

Clinton leads, 51-38, in Puerto Rico.

Staten Island Democrats back Mike McMahon as their candidate for Vito Fossella’s seat.

The Staten Island Advance has video of the endorsement.

Curtis Sliwa says he’ll run on the Republican line for the seat.

David Paterson directed state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside New York.

Paterson also unveiled a Program to Eliminate the Gap (P.E.G.) in the state budget.

Paterson doesn’t like the NYRA horse racing deal, but will stay with it.

The state is having trouble hiring an economic czar.

The M.T.A. is fighting to be able to keep giving past and present board members free E-ZPasses.

The New York Post editorial board blasted Christine Quinn and others for shifting focus away from the slush fund scandal onto what they call a manufactured debate about school aid cuts, which, the paper writes, “are really increases that fall slightly short of what some had hoped for.”

There might there be a Hebrew charter school in the city's future.

Republicans in New York are at their “lowest ebb in 70 years.”

Bill Thompson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have an op-ed in the Times about wildlife in the city.

Scott Stringer wants to end tax breaks for some local firms.

Anthony Weiner on dating Huma Abedin: “I'm certain that the relationship was not the product of a political calculation.”