Politics on the Hudson

  Republican gubernatorial candidate John Faso said Thursday he’s returning to his law firm effectively immediately, that the party needs a good “soul searching’’ and that state GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik should step down.

  “I think the party will have to have a new slate and, more importantly, needs to figure out what it believes in,’’ said Faso who lost in record fashion to Democrat Eliot Spitzer on Tuesday. “We can’t be seen as a pale imitation of Democrats.’’

   Faso got little help from the party apparatus and will wind up being the worst-funded major-party gubernatorial candidate in N.Y. since 1990.

  Faso said he hasn’t had any discussions, since the election, with colleagues about who should succeed Minarik. But he said the party “has been ignoring the fundamentals’’ such as building enrollment, developing political talent and training future candidates.

  Faso said he is returning to work for the sprawling law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips though his responsibilities haven’t been determined, and that he needed to catch up on personal responsibilities that have been on the back burner.