GREEN'S LAST GASP

"It is the biggest show in town at that point," said Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff. "With [long-shot gubernatorial hopeful Tom] Suozzi not attending - and I'm not sure what impact that would have had anyway - clearly, the dugout chatter at the convention will be about the AG race."

So far, Green has succeeded in creating the perception that the race is two-tiered - with him and Cuomo on top, and the three other candidates on a lower rung.

But Cuomo may well leave Buffalo as his party's "designee," with more than 50 percent of the vote. And Green is in the fight of his political life to get 25 percent of the weighted vote to automatically get on the primary ballot - and if he doesn't make it, it's a massive blow.

"It's not where you want to be, coming out of Buffalo," Miringoff said.

"Realistically, being the party designee is less significant than avoiding having to circulate petitions," said Miringoff.

"So to get to 25 becomes the big hurdle . . . [and] with winning being such a driving force among Democrats, if Cuomo came away with such a huge advantage, it would be harder [for Green] to continue in a meaningful way."

An "X" factor is Denise O'Donnell, the only woman in the race. She's a career prosecutor - and appeals to some party insiders who don't like Green but also are looking for an alternative to Cuomo.

Some Democratic insiders envision a scenario where, if Cuomo for some reason falters in the fall primary, it's O'Donnell, not Green, who beats him.

State Democrats will overwhelmingly choose incumbent Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for governor today.

Spitzer is expected to deliver a 20-minute acceptance speech, which his aides said will "lay out a new direction for the state."

Four years ago, Cuomo skipped the convention when running for governor. But he and his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, have worked hard to lock up establishment support for the attorney-general race.

Insiders say the younger Cuomo's support, in the words of one key Democrat, "slipped a little bit in recent days," with some of his support among upstate women moving to the little-known O'Donnell.

Green, who has never been close with most of the party leadership, is said to be just above 20 percent in hard support among delegates, and party insiders predict O'Donnell will end up with about 14 percent.

The other two candidates, Charlie King, the only African-American in the race, and Sean Patrick Maloney, an openly gay former Bill Clinton aide, have barely made a blip on the radar.

King, who was Cuomo's running mate in the 2002 gubernatorial bid but has since fallen out with him, has tried to compare the lack of an open ballot to a civil-rights fight.

"From my vantage point, it's one thing to say that you're against injustice and unfairness," King said last week. "It's another thing to do something about it, particularly when you're in a position to do something about it."