Facing a long-shot bid for the nomination of a small but influential right-wing political party, William Weld told The New York Sun yesterday that he was a more conservative governor than George Pataki and would be if elected governor of New York.

“Certainly what we did in Massachusetts is more conservative than what has happened in New York,” he said. While New York residents pay the highest combined local and state income taxes in the nation, he said that during his six-year tenure as governor of Massachusetts in the 1990s, the state shed its reputation as “Taxachusetts” and restrained Medicaid spending.

“I think you could make the case on education, on spending, on taxes, on fees, on crime, and on welfare that I’m as conservative as any governor,” he said.

For Mr. Weld, a lot is riding on his ability to get on the Conservative Party line in November, and his prospects are looking grim. The chairman of the party, Michael Long, said yesterday that it would be “very difficult” for Mr. Weld to get the nomination, saying in an interview, “I don’t necessarily see that happening.” The party, which wants to preserve its line on the ballot by getting 50,000 votes for its candidate, endorsed Mr. Pataki for governor in 1994, 1998, and 2002.

Conservative leaders from counties that have the highest number of registered voters in the party are backing John Faso, a former minority leader of the state Assembly who was narrowly defeated in the 2002 comptroller’s race.

This is shaping up as a make or break week for Mr. Faso to secure the Conservative Party’s nomination, political backing that is seen as crucial in checking the aspirations of Mr. Weld, who leads the Republican pack in campaign donations and has support from the chairman of the state GOP.

Mr. Faso, who some in the Republican Party doubt will be able to raise enough money to mount a serious challenge against the Democratic frontrunner, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, is trying to use the backing of the Conservatives to pole-vault over Mr. Weld. If Conservatives don’t back Mr. Weld, then the Republican Party won’t either, Mr. Faso told the Sun yesterday.

The “vast majority” of the Republican county chairmen, he said, “understand that it’s necessary to support a candidate for governor who can get both the Republican and Conservative lines.”

In an unusual move for a New York gubernatorial candidate, especially this early in the race, Mr. Faso has bought 90 seconds of airtime tomorrow night, when he will officially announce his candidacy. The live television spot, which will air throughout the state on major networks at 7:58 p.m. and cost him about a tenth of his campaign war chest, is a gambit that has taken many political observers by surprise.

The Conservative Party this morning is holding a conference in Albany to meet with the various candidates, who include not only Messrs. Faso and Weld but also Patrick Manning, a six-term Assemblyman from Dutchess County, and Randy Daniels, who recently stepped down as secretary of state to seek the governorship. All of the candidates are set to deliver remarks to party members at the Marriott hotel this morning.

The quickening pace of the showdown was signaled last week when a number of important endorsements were made on both sides. Mr. Weld picked up Herbert London, who ran for comptroller in 1994 and who is a widely known neoconservative intellectual. Mr. Faso has in the past week gained the endorsement of the Queens Conservative Party chairman, Thomas Long, who is the brother of Mr. Long, along with Manhattan, Queens, and Erie County chairmen, giving him support from at least nine counties. Mr. Manning said he has endorsements from 20 counties, but many with smaller number of Conservative voters.

In past elections, the endorsement of the Conservative Party has been a crucial asset for Republican candidates in New York. No statewide Republican has won office without backing from the Conservative Party since 1974 and the party takes credit for giving Mr. Pataki his slim margin of victory over Mario Cuomo in the 1994 race, with more than 320,000 New Yorkers voting for Mr. Pataki on the Conservative line. In 1990, the Conservative candidate, Mr. London, almost outpolled Republican candidate Pierre Rinfret, whose candidacy was marked by blunders.

The party is the fourth largest in the state, with an enrollment of 155,000, directly behind the Independence Party founded by Rochester billionaire Thomas Golisano. The Republican Party has an enrollment of more than 3 million and the Democratic Party has more than 5 million in the state.

Founded more than four decades ago to counter the social liberalism of Nelson Rockefeller, the Conservative Party views Mr. Weld’s stances on social issues like abortion and gay marriage with unease.

Mr. Weld has said he supports gay marriage but has indicated recently that he supported it only in Massachusetts to comply with a court order.

In 2004, he told the Advocate, a gay themed publication, “I believe it is possible that public opinion may become less antagonistic toward same-sex marriage as people see more same-sex couples raising children.”

He wants to outlaw partial-birth abortions and is strongly in favor of the death penalty, he said yesterday.

As governor of Massachusetts, he cut taxes 19 times, by his count, and said recently in a speech in Rochester that he supports a constitutional amendment in New York that would “prevent Albany from spending beyond a set limit without voter approval. “On the issue of school choice, he created charter schools as governor and approved a law that gave more freedom to schoolchildren to enroll in public schools of their choosing.

Mr. Weld’s Republican opponents yesterday scoffed at his chances for the nomination and played up its importance. “Bill Weld will not get the conservative endorsement because he represents the failed liberal policies of the past,” a spokesman for Mr. Daniels, Robert Ryan, said.

“It’s common knowledge that Bill Weld is not going to get the conservative line,” said Mr. Manning, who changed his party registration to Republican from Democrat when he was 23. “Without it, it’s game over.”