Two Candidates Claim Reform Nomination
L O N G B E A C H, Calif., Aug. 13, 2000 -- Two opposing candidates have claimed the Reform Party’s presidential nomination, as rival factions each continue to assert legitimacy at competing conventions here.
In one hall of the Long Beach Convention Center, some 500 Reform Party delegates voted overwhelmingly to elect controversial conservative Pat Buchanan as their presidential nominee.
Across the street, at another hall in the same complex, a separate gathering of Reform Party members named Dr. John Hagelin, a little-known physicist from Iowa, as the party’s presidential candidate.
Both camps insist they are the real Reform Party and that their chosen candidate is the legitimate nominee and the one entitled to $12.6 million in campaign funds from the Federal Election Commission.
Buchanan Slams GOP
On Friday, pro-Buchanan delegates voted 471-0, with six abstentions, to nominate the three-time Republican candidate as the next president — hardly a surprise, given that pro-Hagelin delegates were barred from even entering the Buchanan convention.
“What are we fighting for?” Buchanan asked supporters Saturday night, as he accepted their nomination. “To save our country from being sold down the river into some godless New World Order … and we will fight on and on and on and on until God himself calls us home.”
Buchanan also reached out to founder Ross Perot and hissupporters.
“Ross, let’s go out and do battle together,” Buchanan said ina last-minute revision to his nomination acceptance speech. “We’regiving (the party) the chance to grow and live. We’ve earned thatchance. Ross, come on out and give us a hand.”
In his speech, Buchanan called on fellow social conservatives, whom he insisted had been abandoned by the GOP, to join him in the third party.
“At long last we have a home of our own,” he said firmly. “As for those homeless conservatives … all I can say is: Folks, come on over — there is plenty of room in Reform.”
Even as detractors continued to accuse him of hijacking the party to further what they say is an extremist, Right Wing agenda, Buchanan put his conservative stands on full display, railing against abortion rights and affirimative action.
“Welcome to the last red-meat convention in America!” he bellowed, taking a shot at the Republican convention in Philadelphia last week, where the party strived to showcase its new, more moderate image.
Hagelin Claims Perot Mantle
The results of the Reform Party’s mail-in and Internet primary were announced on Friday at the anti-Buchanan convention. The final count, as tabulated by the independent firm E-Ballot, was 49,529 votes for Buchanan and 28,539 for Hagelin.
But pro-Hagelin party officials said that some 43,000 of the Buchanan ballots were submitted fraudulently, bringing his vote total down to a paultry 6,000 votes and leaving Hagelin as the rightful nominee.
Meanwhile, back at the Buchanan convention, delegates had already voted 441-13 to set aside the contested results of the primary, even before the final tally had been announced.
“It is with the utmost pride and sense of duty and with the utmost honor,” Hagelin told his supporters, “that I accept your charge, your confidence, your faith in my ability to represent you in the highest principles on which this party was founded.”
“I accept with humility and pride the mantle of H. Ross Perot,” Hagelin added, paying homage to the Texas billionaire who founded the third party in 1995 and staged his second run for the White House under its banner the following year.
Many of Hagelin’s supporters include longtime party members still loyal to Perot, who feel Buchanan’s views on controversial social and moral issues are at odds with the spirit of the party, which was founded on a call for governmental reform.
A Party Divided
The two warring factions of the Reform Party split-up and began their separate nominating conventions on Thursday, in the wake of a move by Buchanan supporters to seize control of the party apparatus at national committee meetings here earlier this week.
“It’s like inviting someone to dinner,” longtime Perot aide Russ Verney told reporters, “and before dinner is served, they’re throwing the host out of his own home.”
Since the competing conventions began, there have, for all intents and purposes, been two Reform Parties, with two party chairmen, two sets of convention delegates and now two presidential candidates. There will also be two certifications to the FEC, which will be forced to decide which White House hopeful — Buchanan or Hagelin — is entitled to the $12.6 million prize due the legitimate nominee.
The Hagelin camp has already filed two complaints with the FEC, seeking to disqualify Buchanan from receiving the campaign cash, on the grounds that he cheated during the primary and illegally took control of the party’s organization.
Buchanan, of course, insists that he has played by the rules. And both sides say they will contest the decision in appeals court should the FEC rule against them.
Third Party Veepstakes
On Friday, Buchanan announced his vice-presidential running mate: Ezola Foster, a black 62-year-old former school teacher and a virtual political unknown. The announcement came as his opponents were labeling him the candidate of “bigotry, hatred and intolerance” — one pro-Hagelin official even likened Buchanan’s convention to “some kind of Klan meeting.”
On Saturday, the anti-Buchanan faction also nominated Nat Goldhaber, a wealthy former Silicon Valley business executive as the party’s vice-presidential candidate.
The dueling conventions will draw to a close Sunday evening. With shoving matches between members of the competing groups a common occurrence and hostile shouting matches a constant backdrop, the atmosphere here has been more akin to a three-ring circus than a serious political process.
At any rate, the bizarre Reform Party gathering has offered a stark contrast to the well-scripted, well-choreographed displays of party unity that are the Republican and Democratic Party conventions.
ABCNEWS’ Rebecca Bershadker contributed to this report.