Supporters of party founder Ross Perot are claiming the nomination -- and the money that goes with it -- for physicist John Hagelin instead. And no one is likely to see the cash until the issue is thrashed out by the Federal Election Commission and then, probably, the courts.

"Let me admit it," Buchanan said in an interview. "If the establishment is able to deny us the little amount of money we get, and we get a media blackout so that I'm not covered, and then they keep us out of the debate, yes, they can make it impossible to win."

Even then, former Republican Buchanan and his supporters believe they would have won a key victory in his 40-year political career: Buchanan's own political organization, no party elders to mind and perhaps a role in the general election representing voters unhappy with both the Republicans and the Democrats.

"For years, my friends, we have all heard that familiar taunt: 'Don't worry about them; they have nowhere else to go,"' Buchanan said in remarks prepared for his nomination acceptance speech Saturday night. "Well, guess what? We have somewhere else to go.

"At long last, we have found a home of our own."

Money or not, Buchanan remains a long shot, drawing 1 to 4 percentage points in recent national polls. But he contends that for him the race is just beginning now that he has won the Reform Party nomination.

The key, he says, is achieving the 15 percent poll support required to gain admittance to the presidential debates with Al Gore and George W. Bush.

But that depends on a plan anchored in part by a modest radio and television campaign to be paid for by the $12.5 million, said the candidate's campaign manager and sister, Bay Buchanan.

Even without that money, she said $1 million to $2 million in donations would keep the campaign running and her brother on the road five days a week.

"You will see us out there, state-to-state, and we will get enormous interest and free publicity," she said.

The separate convention that nominated Hagelin was still going strong on Saturday, too, following his suggestion and selecting Nat Goldhaber, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, as his running mate.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's hard to believe this, but we have a chance of winning the White House in November," Goldhaber told delegates, to a standing ovation.

Hagelin's supporters have filed a complaint with the FEC charging that Buchanan fraudulently claimed the nomination and asking that the federal funds be awarded to Hagelin instead.

The Perot loyalists have expressed strong objections to Buchanan's efforts to take over the party founded by the Texas billionaire. They don't like the way Buchanan has gone about it, replacing longstanding state party officials with his own, and they don't like the way he emphasizes conservative social issues, an approach they say is in direct contradiction to what most party members want.

Buchanan, who left the Republican Party to run for the Reform Party nomination, is not moved.

During this past week, he has still been using the stark language he favors: He will fight the "rampant homosexuality" that in part is causing the nation's cultural decline. Eradicating abortion will be his top priority.

"Republicans may be running away from life, but as long as there is life left in me I will never run away," he said in his prepared acceptance speech.

He laughs off the widely televised image of shoving, shouting members of his adopted party, denying that it will hurt the organization's credibility.

"Look, people forget these things in a week," he said. He noted the violence outside the Democrats' 1968 convention in Chicago and said, "Compared to that, this is high tea at Buckingham Palace."

AP writer Scott Lindlaw contributed to this report.