ASHINGTON - Pat Buchanan said yesterday he was still seeking a running mate but was confident he would win a rules fight and claim the Reform Party's presidential nomination when its convention opens later this week.
''We're going to dominate the convention. I think we're going to win the vote,'' said Buchanan, who made a tour of four morning talk shows just days before the Reform Party convention convenes in Long Beach, Calif.
The veteran conservative politician and commentator faces opposition from allies of party founder Ross Perot, who have erected a number of procedural and political obstacles to Buchanan's attempt to claim the nomination.
The first showdown comes tomorrow at a national committee meeting that could decide whether Buchanan's delegates are seated and whether he remains on the party's nominating ballot.
''We're going to win the national committee meeting,'' Buchanan said on ''Fox News Sunday.''
''The only thing they have got is about eight or 10 people in positions of power and influence who are former Perot folks who simply want to derail our nomination,'' he said. ''They simply want to destroy the party. We're there to build it.''
Buchanan is being challenged for the Reform nomination by physicist and Natural Law Party founder John Hagelin, who is backed by anti-Buchanan forces on the national committee including former national chairman Russell Verney.
''We are offering the American people, frankly, in the Reform Party, an energetic, enthusiast fighting campaign this fall,'' Buchanan said. ''And Mr. Verney, what is he doing? He's just mixing the Kool-Aid.''
The Reform Party was founded by Perot, a Texas billionaire, after his 1992 presidential run in which he gained 19 percent of the vote. He won less than half of that in 1996, but it was enough to qualify the party nominee in 2000 for $12.6 million in federal election funds.
But the convention fight could be just the beginning of Buchanan's troubles.
After dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination last year and turning to Perot's Reform Party, he lags badly in national polls, routinely registering only 1 to 2 percent of the vote.
And he admitted yesterday he has had trouble finding a running mate.
''We've gone through a number of folks and talked to folks. We had real interest in some who have turned it down, but we're still working on it,'' Buchanan said on Fox.
His stance in the polls does not help, he admitted later on CNN's ''Late Edition.''
''No Democrat or Republican wants to risk a rising career if he figures he, you know, that this is going to go down the chute,'' he said.
But he said the recently concluded Republican convention showed the need for his candidacy as President Clinton leaves office.
''This Republican Party has been Clintonized,'' he said.
