A former Republican minority leader of the state Assembly, John Faso, told The New York Sun yesterday that he expects to gain enough support among New York’s Republican county chairmen to become the GOP candidate for governor next year.

Mr. Faso yesterday announced that he has hired a campaign team for the gubernatorial race.

While December’s meeting in Albany of the 62 Republican county chairman from across the state is seen as an attempt by the state’s GOP chairman, Stephen Minarik, to anoint a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, as the party’s standard-bearer, Mr. Faso says it is clear from his discussions with the county chairmen that he will win the vote.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican who is supporting billionaire Thomas Golisano, a former Independence Party candidate turned Republican, has called on Mr. Minarik to postpone the vote until Mr. Golisano decides whether he will run. A former New York secretary of state, Randy Daniels, and Assemblyman Patrick Manning of Dutchess County are also planning to run.

Yesterday, Rep. John Sweeney, a Republican of New York, joined Mr. Bruno in arguing that the GOP should postpone the December 12 vote, saying the party needs more time.

Some Republicans are hoping to avoid a primary that will bloody their nominee before he goes on to challenge the Democratic candidate.

While Mr. Bruno has expressed doubt whether Mr. Faso could raise enough money to run a strong campaign, Mr. Faso yesterday pointed out that he raised $7.5 million in 2002, when he defied pollsters and came within three percentage points of beating the heavily favored Alan Hevesi in the race for state comptroller.

“I raised more in ’02 than my much better known opponent and raised more than anyone else who has ever run for comptroller,” Mr. Faso said.

Mr. Faso’s campaign team will include Michael Hook, a consultant to members of Congress who was also a consultant to Mr. Faso’s 2002 comptroller race; John Rogers, a former executive director of the Westchester Republican County Committee and a member of President Bush’s 2004 campaign team; Christina Sofia-Comer, who served as Mr. Faso’s 2002 finance director; Tamara Hallisey-Hatfield, who has raised money for Republicans such as President George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas, and Susan Del Percio and Bill O’Reilly of O’Reilly Strategic Communications, a Manhattan-based firm.

While Mr. Faso served in the Assembly from upstate Columbia County, he graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens and the State University of New York at Brockport, and he earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law.

Mr. Faso has a reputation as a staunch fiscal conservative who in 1994 helped Governor Pataki’s budget transition team close a deficit of $5 billion and put the state budget back in the black. The tax and spending cuts that Mr. Faso helped push through the Legislature led to several years of budget surpluses.

Now, Mr. Faso says, the state is facing similar problems to those of the early 1990s.”We are competing with countries and states that can offer lower energy costs, lower workers’ comp, and property taxes right across the board, so how do we compete?” he said. “How do we compete in terms of education to make sure that the kids that graduate from high school have degrees that are worth the paper they’re printed on so that they can be competitive?” To increase competition in schools, Mr. Faso sponsored the state’s charter school legislation in 1998.

“The innovation and the dynamism of the charter school environment definitely does spur reform, and it gets out of the stultifying work rule environment that exists in the traditional public school and provides a level of competition that is significant and important,” Mr. Faso said. He added that the state should eliminate the 100-school cap on charters to encourage more charter schools.

As governor, Mr. Faso said that he would increase Albany’s fiscal commitment to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He explained that with one-third of the entire nation’s mass transit riders in New York City, it was crucial for business and the economy for the transit system to be modernized.

Mr. Faso said: “There are ongoing capital programs of the MTA that need to be enhanced and accelerated. For instance, with better signaling, you can increase the throughput of trains, so that the trains run closer together. Modern signaling technology allows you to do that. That allows you to move more people in the same amount of time that you do now. That will reduce crowding and reduce waiting time.”

When asked if he rides the subway, Mr. Faso laughed and said, “It’s $48 worth of fares when you pay $40 on your MetroCard. I buy the $48 worth of trips.”

Getting to the governor’s mansion will cost closer to $48 million.