ONG BEACH, Calif. - Patrick Buchanan yesterday chose Ezola Foster, an African-American woman with decidedly conservative views, as his running mate, and a rival faction of the Reform Party voted to repudiate him as a presidential candidate.
As the Reform Party's tong war pushed into its fourth day, a group associated with the party's founder, Ross Perot, voted not only to disqualify Buchanan but to invalidate all votes he received in nationwide balloting completed this month. The action assured that this faction will nominate its own candidate, John Hagelin, an Iowa physicist, for president.
In a setback to the anti-Buchanan bloc shortly after the vote, however, the results of a secret mail-in ballot by thousands of party members gave Buchanan a decisive victory. Although Hagelin and his supporters predicted earlier in the day that Buchanan would be trounced in what was billed as a primary, conducted by mail and Internet, Buchanan won with 49,529 votes to Hagelin's 28,539.
The Buchanan faction had been prepared to ignore the results and to nominate the former Republican firebrand from the floor of a separate convention controlled by his loyalists. Last night, Buchanan supporters formally nominated him for president.
The moves left the shattered Reform Party with two candidates claiming the nomination and the $12.6 million in federal campaign funds due to go to the party's nominee. It appeared the struggle was headed for court, which could cripple political activities this fall for the party that challenged the Republicans and Democrats in 1992 and 1996.
In a day full of confusion and discord, Buchanan pulled off the biggest surprise by presenting Foster, a 62-year-old Los Angeles educator, as his vice presidential running mate. Foster, who ran twice unsuccessfully for a congressional seat, is known in Southern California political circles for her opposition to affirmative action, but she has little name recognition outside the region.
At a press conference by the harbor, Buchanan introduced Foster as an ''unapologetic'' opponent of the nation's abortion laws and immigration policies.
Foster attacked the US Department of Education and declared that ''it's time for us to protect American borders'' against immigration ''and not other borders overseas.'' In response to a question, she said the Confederate battle flag represented Southern interests ''in a war that had more to do with states' rights'' than anything else. The flag, she said, is ''not racist'' and should be honored.
Though Buchanan called his movement the ''French Foreign Legion of American politics'' and said he welcomed new followers regardless of their previous party affiliation, Foster was not so receptive.
''If you're too leftist, you may not want to be with us,'' she said.
Buchanan grinned and said, ''And the press says I'm hard-core.''
The unabashedly conservative stands by Buchanan have alienated many of the founding members of the Reform Party. Frank MacKay, chairman of the New York Independent Party, which is affiliated with the Reform Party, said yesterday he felt he ''had been to a [Ku Klux] Klan meeting'' at a session Thursday where Buchanan's forces were in charge.
But Perot's followers are also appalled that Buchanan, who joined the party less than a year ago, gained control of the Reform Party apparatus during a series of state conventions earlier this year.
The two sides headed to Long Beach on a collision course and divided Tuesday into dueling conventions that are being conducted simultaneously this week in neighboring civic centers.
Jim Mangia, chairman of the anti-Buchanan group, insisted that Buchanan's margin of victory in the plebiscite was ''directly related to fraudulent ballots.'' He said Buchanan had padded the vote by requesting 500,000 ballots for individuals on his old Republican database who are not Reform Party members.
Fewer than 80,000 voters cast ballots, and both sides are now ignoring the outcome of a process that Michael Ferris, a Reform Party official, said was conducted at a cost to taxpayers of $900,000.
