ONG BEACH, Calif. - With two factions hopelessly divided, the Reform Party faces the prospect that a pair of competing national conventions will open today to nominate rival presidential candidates and further complicate a struggle for $12.6 million in federal campaign funds.
Officials opposing Patrick J. Buchanan's attempt to take over the party carried out an early morning raid yesterday on a convention hall room designated for a credentials committee meeting, blocked the Buchanan group from entering, and set up their own process to validate delegates to the convention.
As a result, Buchanan's supporters in the party hierarchy were forced to throw up a makeshift operation in an adjacent room to certify Buchanan delegates.
While both sides were claiming to represent the Reform Party, several hundred prospective delegates began descending on Long Beach, and emotions were boiling.
''We will not be outsmarted again,'' said Gerry Moan, the acting national chairman who has sided with the Buchanan interests. He vowed to open the Reform Party convention this morning in the appointed hall, even if he had to sleep inside the building to fend off Buchanan's opponents. Moan blamed the disruptions on members still affiliated with the party's founder, Ross Perot.
Though apparently outnumbered, the Perot group insisted they were carrying out the legitimate business of the party. They said they were prepared to conduct their own convention simultaneously at another location in Long Beach.
''We're on a parallel course,'' said Russell Verney, a Perot associate and former national chairman who is leading the fight to thwart Buchanan. ''We're going foward with our credentials process, our convention and our own nomination.'' The anti-Buchanan group is allied behind John Hagelin, who is already running for president under the banner of the Natural Law Party.
Verney said he expected the bifurcated party to produce two nominees who would both petition the Federal Election Commission for the $12.6 million due to the Reform Party. Though Buchanan is counting on receiving the money by Labor Day, the rancorous fight could tie up the funds for months.
With characteristic bravado, Buchanan arrived in Long Beach yesterday afternoon, proclaimed the battle won, and told a claque of his supporters in a hotel driveway: ''Be gentle with those fellows who are giving us a hard time. They're having a difficult World Series.''
In keeping with the confusion, Buchanan tried to strike a Harry Truman pose by displaying a newspaper with a front page photo of two of ''those fellows,'' Verney and national secretary Jim Mangia, appearing in distress. But Buchanan held the paper upside down and turned to the wrong page, until informed that he was botching the photo opportunity.
''We're going to have these little tiffs and disputes behind us by Sunday,'' Buchanan promised. But that seemed unlikely.
At an earlier press conference, Mangia accused Buchanan of ''brown-shirt'' tactics. ''We have a situation where the Buchanan campaign is attempting to subvert, corrupt, pervert and destroy the process.'' He charged that the ''Buchanan brigadiers'' had roughed up Perot loyalists when Buchanan's forces seized control of a national committee meeting Tuesday.
''Oh, please,'' said Moan when told of the accusation.
During a confrontation in the convention hall, Moan mounted steps to direct Buchanan's delegates to a new location for their credentialing process. He was shouted down by a group from the Perot faction.
Mangia then took over the position, only to be hooted by a chorus of ''Go Pat Go!'' from the Buchanan delegates.
About a dozen Long Beach police, equipped with truncheons, were deployed to the scene, but the battle did not escalate beyond high-pitched screaming.
Both sides claimed to hold majorities on the 160-member national committee.
While the Buchanan-friendly ''national committee'' was busy revoking last month's decision by a 10-member executive committee aligned with Perot to disqualify Buchanan as a candidate, the other ''national committee'' ratified the move late Tuesday.
When the formal convention opens this morning, Buchanan's sister and campaign manager Bay Buchanan said, there will be 596 delegates, ''and 410 will be ours.''
But dozens of the delegate seats are being challenged, and it seemed likely that the Reform Party would split like an amoeba before the end of the day.
