HOW NOMINEE IS CHOSEN Here's how the Reform Party chooses its presidential nominee: A presidential primary is held between July 4 and the national convention Aug. 10-13 in Long Beach, Calif. Virtually anyone can participate in the mail-in balloting. State parties have a variety of rules for choosing delegates. State representatives announce their results from the convention floor. Any candidate receiving at least a majority of votes wins the nomination unless: The chair of the convention or the national secretary has received resolutions by a majority of state delegations to override the primary. If an override attempt is triggered, it takes two-thirds of the delegates present to overturn the nomination. The presidential nomination is then decided on the floor of the convention, with each state delegation voting. Any candidate who receives at least a majority wins. MONEY AT STAKE The Reform Party and its presidential nominee are in line for millions of dollars in federal funds. Here's how it breaks down: PRIMARIES: Reform Party presidential candidates qualify for matching funds just like the candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties. To do so, a candidate must raise at least $5,000 from individuals in each of 20 different states in contributions of no more than $250. After qualifying, the federal government matches the first $250 of each individual contribution for candidates who agree to limit their spending. This year, the limit is $40.5 million, plus certain legal and accounting costs. Pat Buchanan already has qualified for matching funds and has been certified for $3.2 million through Feb. 29. CONVENTION: The party will get $2.5 million in taxpayer funds to help pay for its nominating convention. GENERAL ELECTION: Based on the vote that Reform Party candidate Ross Perot received in 1996, the party's nominee this year will be entitled to $12.6 million in federal funds for the fall campaign.

WASHINGTON -- To Pat Buchanan, his tour of Reform Party state conventions is a legitimate, if aggressive, bid for the group's presidential nomination. But to supporters of party founder Ross Perot, Buchanan's march across the country looks more like a quiet coup.

"They want to elect their own chairmen, take over the party and make sure all of the delegates vote for Pat Buchanan," said Charles Dodge, who resigned as Wisconsin chairman amid a dustup between factions earlier this month. "We're a democratic group; we don't work that way."

Buchanan's campaign manager and sister, Bay, readily admits the campaign is touring the party conventions -- 23 so far -- in a bid for enough delegates to secure her brother's nomination and the $12.6 million in federal funding it brings.

Problems arise, she said, when state parties try to amend the rules to exclude Buchanan supporters from participating or running for party offices, which influence delegate selection.

Party leaders in Wisconsin recently tried to prevent members of less than six months from running for chairman or other offices. That would have affected most Buchanan supporters since they joined the Reform Party after he bolted the Republican Party in October.

Buchanan and the Reform Party also have clashed in New Hampshire and California.

Bay Buchanan said the majority of state parties have no problem with the campaign.

"We are trying to be the dominant force at the national convention," she said in a recent interview. "That is what you try to do when you wish to win a nomination."

Some longtime party members say that thinking reflects Buchanan's roots in the GOP, where delegate math is key to the party's nomination. The Reform Party has tried to establish a tradition of coalition-building during its nomination process.

But in response to Buchanan's presence, some state parties have split into opposing factions and some national party members are distrustful of the conservative commentator.

In the middle is chairman Pat Choate, a Buchanan friend who was Perot's 1996 running mate.

"You have to get the long-term party members to welcome and appreciate the new blood that's coming in, which the party absolutely must have to survive," Choate said in a recent interview. "With the new people ... get them to understand the way that the Reform Party does it."

Turmoil within the party didn't start with Buchanan, who says he could transform it from a brawling bunch of factions back into the unified political force it was in 1992 when Perot won 19 percent of the vote.

"What will come out will be populist, traditionalist, conservative, very strongly supportive of the ideas of mine on trade and foreign policy and immigration policy," Buchanan said in a recent interview. "At the end, it'll look like the Rockettes."

But longtime Reform members say Buchanan's methods combined with his conservative social positions and comments about homosexuals and Nazis only create new fault lines. And his barely-there showing in the polls has convinced some that the fighting isn't worth it.

Donna Donovan resigned as press secretary last week because of the tension.

"There has not been a happy marriage between the Buchanan members of the party and the old guard," Donovan said in an interview Monday in which she expressed concern about the appointment of an official in charge of credentials who is loyal to Buchanan.

"It's a sign that the Buchanan people have an edge to control the delegates and maybe the agenda," she added. "That's not the Reform Party, that's the Buchanan Reform Party. And the question becomes, do we stay and fight this, or do we go off and start something else?"

But Pat Owens, who heads Buchanan's Wisconsin campaign, said he has as much right to pursue the nomination, in whatever way he chooses, as anyone else. If the party doesn't survive this year, she said it will be because the Perot loyalists are trying to exclude viable candidates.

"I don't believe they want it to survive," Owens said. "It's sad because here's (a candidate) that could really make it into a darn good party, and they're trying to keep him out."

Bay Buchanan believes the competition is real as long as Perot loyalists continue to float possible alternatives, from the Texas billionaire himself -- who has not commented on whether he will mount a third presidential bid -- to Sen. John McCain and Green Party hopeful Ralph Nader.

"Until I know categorically that Pat Buchanan has this won, we will continue to pursue 100 percent of the national delegates," she said.