Gov. David Paterson stunned two upstate radio hosts – not to mention a host of listeners – this morning when he confessed he has no idea whether he has been invited to attend President Obama’s speech in Buffalo this Thursday.

“I actually don’t know that,” Paterson told 930 AM WBEN “Early Show” hosts John Zach and Susan Rose.

“I know he’s coming and I’d have to get back to you on that. We’re just very happy that he’s coming to the State of New York, and he will be certainly trying to lend his voice to the economic recovery to Western New York, which is a region that was in recession long before the rest of the nation.”

When one of the hosts incredulously asked Paterson how it could be that the leader of the free world is coming to the state of which he himself is the leader (at least until January) and he might not have been invited to be on hand, the governor replied:

“I’m just saying I don’t…this is not something I just happen to know off the top of my head.”

Zach said Erie County Democratic Chairman Len Lenihan has predicted AG Andrew Cuomo, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee, will attend Obama’s speech and asked Paterson if he’s angry at the president for “snubbing” the governor during his last trip upstate (to HVCC in Troy).

As you’ll recall, that visit came on the heels of the news that the White House had asked Paterson not to run in the fall. Obama was greeted on the tarmac by Paterson, who gave the president an awkward hug.

During his speech, Obama called Paterson a “wonderful man” and then gave a big shout-out and 1,000-watt smile to the “shy and retiring” AG.

Paterson insisted this morning that he hadn’t felt snubbed by Obama, adding:

“And I said it at the time, you know, people read all kinds of things into anything, and I think the president has got a lot to deal with. He’s got some of the same economic problems on a macro level that we’ve got here in New York State.”

“Things like that don’t really bother me. What bothers me…is it’s taking too long for everybody to recognize what kind of dire financial straits we’re in.”

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