ALBANY - For the next month, the numbers that will be constantly repeated in political circles are 25 and 15,000.

They are not, respectively, the number of election campaigns conducted by Mark Green for public office (just 11 going into this year) or the votes Andrew Cuomo won in the 2002 governor's election as the candidate of the Liberal Party (although it is close at 15,761).

But, the numbers are very important to Cuomo, Green and a host of other political wannabes as they prepare for the Democratic and Republican state conventions that begin at the end of May. Democrats meet in Buffalo; Republicans on Long Island.

Twenty-five percent is the amount of the weighted delegate vote that candidates for statewide office need at the conventions to earn an automatic spot on the state's September primary ballot.

Failing that, the only way candidates can get on the primary

ballot is by collecting the signatures of at least 15,000 enrolled party members on petitions that must be circulated statewide. At least 100 of those signatures must come from each of half the state's 29 congressional districts. That means a campaign could collect 13,600 signatures in one congressional district and just 100 in each of 14 others. The petition process can, however, be time consuming and expensive.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will likely be the unanimous or near unanimous selection of delegates in her bid for a second term.

For governor, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is widely expected to become the Democratic convention delegates' designee - more than 50 percent of the vote - and could win more than 75 percent, thus forcing his rival for the nomination, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, to quit the race or go the petition route. Suozzi, who relishes the role of political outsider, said Friday he will pursue petitions.

For state attorney general, Cuomo appears to be the front-runner in the battle for Democratic convention delegate support.

On the Republican side, former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer has the support of state GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik in his bid for the Senate nomination to take on Clinton.

But Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, a political novice, is challenging Spencer. Spencer's camp is working to keep her below 25 percent.

For governor, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld appears to have much more than the 25 percent vote needed to advance beyond the GOP convention in his native New York.

It remains unclear a month before the GOP convention if former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso will reach that threshold, but he has vowed to go the petition route if necessary.