Billionaire businessman Thomas Golisano, three times the losing Independence Party candidate for governor of New York, said yesterday that Senator McCain wants him to make a fourth run – this time as a Republican.

Meanwhile, a top New York Republican official said the former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, has begun laying the groundwork for his own likely run for governor in his native New York next year.

“He did call me,” Mr. Golisano said. “He was very personable and said the Republican Party could use people like me, and that he’d love to have me as a candidate” for governor.

“I said I had a big decision to make and as soon as I make it, he’ll be one of the first people to know,” the Rochester-based businessman and owner of the National Hockey league’s Buffalo Sabres, said.

“I’m thinking about it,” Mr. Golisano said, adding that he expected to make a decision “probably within the next 60 to 90 days.” There was no immediate comment from Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican, who is on a trip to Alaska this week with Senator Clinton, a New York Democrat. McCain political adviser John Weaver confirmed the senator had called Mr. Golisano and urged him to run for governor. Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton, according to national polls, are front-runners for their respective parties’ 2008 presidential nominations.

On the Weld front, the party official and friend of the former governor, told the AP that Weld would likely make his intentions public at a meeting with regional GOP leaders in Rockland County on September 8.

“He is definitely on that path,” the GOP official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not have Mr. Weld’s permission to speak publicly on the matter, said.

The meeting in suburban Rockland County, just north of New York City, is the third in a series of such sessions being organized by state GOP chairman, Stephen Minarik, so prospective statewide candidates can talk to local party leaders.

Thus far, Sam Houston is the only two-state governor in history, having served in Tennessee from 1827 to 1829 and Texas from 1859 to 1861.

Even before Governor Pataki, a Republican, announced late last month that he would not seek a fourth term next year, there had been talk in New York political circles that Mr. Golisano might be interested in running for governor as a Republican. Several others are already eyeing the GOP nomination for governor, including Randy Daniels, New York’s appointed secretary of state and a former CBS-TV newsman; the former state Assembly minority leader, John Faso; the state assemblyman, Patrick Manning of Dutchess County; and the state senator, Raymond Meier of the Utica area.