The “official” announcement likely won’t come until fall, but it is official in Mark Neumann’s mind: the former congressman doesn’t deny he’s making plans to run for governor next year.

“If you want the honest answer from my gut, I can’t stand what’s going on in the country and in our state,” Neumann, 55, said in a telephone interview Friday.

A Republican who represented the Kenosha area in the House from 1995 to 1999, Neumann said he’s chafed by the spending of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration. Doyle, who was elected governor in 2002, has been raising money and is widely anticipated to seek a third term.

Neumann said he would like to look at stemming job loss, improving public schools while welcoming private alternatives and protecting the environment through alternative means of home construction.

But first, the home builder and educator will likely have to make it through a Republican primary.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is a long-rumored aspirant to the governorship, having built up his local campaign war chest in recent months. Declining to speculate, Walker has said he will make a “very special announcement” on Tuesday.

Neumann said he would expect people to listen and evaluate both his and Walker’s visions.

Harkening back to when he joined Congress, Neumann likened Wisconsin’s present condition to that of the nation after the 1994 GOP sweep.

“I’ve been in this kind of financial mess from a government perspective once before,” Neumann said. “We were successful in solving the problem.”

An East Troy native, Neumann lived in Janesville during the years in which he was in Congress. His political career stopped in 1998, when he lost narrowly in an attempt to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold.

Since then, Neumann has relocated to Waukesha County. In addition to his business responsibilities, he is a founding member and board co-chairman of an organization that has launched three Christian choice schools in Milwaukee and one in Arizona.

Neumann said the nation has been built by people who worked in the private sector before shifting their efforts to public service.

“I would like to believe that that’s what we represent in the best tradition of America,” Neumann said. “I’m ready to do it; we’re ready to put the other business interests aside and focus on this.”

Kathy Carpenter, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Kenosha County, said she was happy to see Neumann re-enter the political arena.

“Scott Walker and Mark Neumann are two wonderful gentlemen who have spent a lifetime serving their communities politically,” Carpenter said. “I think they’re both good candidates.”