Factions tighten race anti-Buchanan effort

By Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY July 6, 2000

WASHINGTON - The five-week fight for the Reform Party's presidential nomination appears likely to be decided in about a dozen states where battling Reform factions are most active.

An analysis of the 1996 Reform primary and interviews with state party leaders show the race
between conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and physicist John Hagelin is more competitive than
originally anticipated by political oddsmakers, who assumed Buchanan's national reputation would give
him an edge.

The nominee will be chosen in a national primary, which started Wednesday and ends Aug. 9. More
than 1 million ballots are being mailed to Reform Party members and other registered voters. Based
on reports from rank-and-file activists, party leaders expect from 100,000-250,000 ballots to be
returned. The winner will be announced at the party's Aug. 10-13 convention in Long Beach, Calif.

Buchanan has a strong core of conservative supporters developed from his years as a TV commentator and Republican presidential candidate. But that strength is being challenged in some key states by factions of Reform Party activists who are loyal to party founder Ross Perot and oppose Buchanan's
positions on social issues like abortion that the party has avoided. Those people back Hagelin in an "anyone-but-Buchanan" effort.

"He (Buchanan) never saw this coming," Hagelin said. "He thought he would be the only one on the primary ballot." Hagelin was the 1992 and 1996 nominee of the Natural Law Party and will be its nominee again this year.

Ballots are being sent to all registered Reform Party members, as well as voters who signed petitions this year to get the party on state ballots and any registered voter who requested one.

About 250,000 of the eligible primary voters live in California and New York, the biggest prizes. Hagelin says he will campaign only in those states until voting ends. But Reform Party leaders say other states crucial to determining the nominee are Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Maine, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Kansas. Those states each cast more than 1,000 votes during the 1996 Reform presidential primary, in which Perot defeated former Colorado governor Dick Lamm
32,145-17,121.

Buchanan is mum on where he expects to pull support. "I don't want to divulge strategy and what states we're strong in," said Bay Buchanan, Pat Buchanan's sister and campaign manager.

He joined the Reform Party in October after faring poorly in his third try for the Republican nomination.

In state caucuses and primaries, Buchanan won more than half of the approximately 600 delegates to the convention, where the vice presidential nominee and the party platform will be decided. Buchanan outlasted potential rivals, chief among them real estate developer Donald Trump, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, former Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker and Perot.

But Buchanan's conservative view of social issues, on which the Reform Party is silent, alienated some members of the party's old guard. They began to shift their support to Hagelin in late June after Perot closed the door on a third candidacy.

While neutral Reform officials give Buchanan the lead for the nomination, several factors have made the contest competitive:

Hagelin has won the support of Lenora Fulani , whose troops have taken control of the New York state Reform organization. Her backing has altered the dynamics of that state to boost Hagelin. She had backed Buchanan until early June, when she said he was shifting the party too far to the right.

Hagelin has gotten the support of Jim Mangia , the national secretary and a leader in the California Reform Party. Mangia and his faction will help Hagelin be competitive in that state, which has the largest base of Reform voters.

Buchanan has a built-in core of 400,000 supporters in the primary - people who signed his petitions to qualify the party for state ballots. If at least half of those people are likely voters, some party officials say it would give Buchanan a huge boost.

Some party officials are demanding that Hagelin quit the Natural Law Party and pledge not to run as its nominee should he lose to Buchanan. His perceived reluctance to do so has caused some potential supporters to say they will sit out the contest.

Some neutral party leaders call the race volatile. Ohio party chairman Frank Reed says it looks like Buchanan and Hagelin each have a quarter of the vote, with the rest undecided. "A lot of voters who are middle, centrist-type people might not want to vote for a conservative position," Reed says.

Jim Brown, vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Reform Party, says there is "strong competition" in his state and many voters are undecided. "It should be very interesting," he says.