An astute reader thinks we might be underplaying the significance of the Erie County GOP’s decision to back its hometown gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino, noting that it makes Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy’s quest to land 50-percent-plus-one at the convention nearly impossible.

“Erie County going for Paladino means that only about 10 percent remains undeclared,” wrote the reader.

“If the Lazio voters stay put with their candidate and Levy gets all of the rest of the votes he only receives 42 percent. Any county chairman looking at the numbers now will probably go for (Rick) Lazio since he seems a sure thing since mathematically. Levy can’t get the 50+1 with Erie County’s 7 percent off the table.”

I refer you to Exhibit A: CapConf’s very helpful breakdown of who’s where in the weighted convention vote.

I also offer the usual caveat that you really can’t assume all of the committee members of every county are going to follow the lead of their respective chairs.

For example, Suffolk County, where Chairman John Jay LaValle is a big Levy supporter, has some Lazio holdouts. LaValle himself has admitted to me that he’ll likely walk into the convention with only 80 percent of his committee in Levy’s corner.

This thing isn’t over until it’s over, and it’s still possible there will be a floor fight at the convention.

There’s still a lot of horse-trading to be done, and observers have been scratching their heads over state GOP Chairman Ed Cox’s encouragement of Orange County GOP Chairman Ed Diana to jump into the already-crowded race against Sen. Kristen Gillibrand.

I talked to Diana, a Lazio supporter, last night on “Capital Tonight,” and he told me in no uncertain terms that he has no plans to flip to Levy’s campaign – no matter how much support Cox might give him – and doesn’t think his GOP chairman, Bill DeProspo, who has called on Cox to resign, will either.

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