Former Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., the maverick lawmaker who made a career of bucking his party and championing liberal causes, said Friday he would run for governor of Connecticut as an independent. ``You're going to get one hell of a race,'' declared the former three-term senator. ``I think I'm going to win it. I don't think it's any gamble at all.'' Weicker, 58, told reporters, supporters and onlookers in a packed Capitol conference room that his unsuccessful bid for a fourth Senate term in 1988 ``took me down a peg or two and probably deservedly so. I've taken my licks.'' ``It's now 1990 and I believe that, as never before, we need each other,'' he said. The announcement capped weeks of intense speculation about Weicker, who in 28 years of political activity cultivated a reputation for aggressive, independent Republicanism. He became a national figure in the mid-70s as one of the first Republicans to take on President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Weicker would say nothing negative about Democratic Gov. William A. O'Neill or Rep. Bruce A. Anderson, a four-term congressman challenging O'Neill for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Nor would he criticize any of the four Republicans now in the running. Weicker was elected to the Senate in 1970 in a three-way race in which the Democrats were badly split. Of his bid to make it a three-way race in the November election, he said: ``The ironies are not lost on me, I can assure you.'' Weicker said he expects he'll need campaign funds of $1 million or $2 million, less than half of what the other major party candidates are talking about spending. The Greenwich millionaire said he wouldn't spend any of his own money on the race. Democrats hailed his decision to run, saying it would divide the GOP and throw the party into chaos. State GOP Chairman Richard Foley said that with Weicker's announcement, ``the race is over. We just won,'' but his voice didn't carry conviction.
