ASHINGTON - An ally of Minnesota's governor, Jesse Ventura, threatened yesterday to quit the Reform Party, and to take other members with him, after he lost a fight with followers of Ross Perot, the founder.
''I don't know how supportive we are going to be of remaining with the party,'' Rick McCluhan, the Minnesota state chairman, said in a telephone interview. He spoke just after US District Court Judge Donald Alsop declined his request to block Perot's supporters from planning the party convention in California.
''We have better things to do here in Minnesota,'' McCluhan said. A spokesman for Ventura declined to comment.
Perot's camp, meanwhile, made it clear that Ventura's supporters would not be missed.
''Don't let the door hit them when they leave,'' the outgoing chairman, Russell Verney, a Perot aide, retorted. He said that McCluhan and Ventura had threatened to bolt before.
Some Ventura allies said talk of seceding was premature. But they acknowledged discomfort with Perot's influence on the party through his backers. Verney, who works for one of Perot's businesses, turns over his chairmanship to Jack Gargan of Cedar Key, Fla., on Saturday.
''Everyone has to sit back and give Jack Gargan time to see if he can democratize the National Reform Party,'' said Dean Barkley, a commissioner in Ventura's administration.
Julie Shortridge, a member of the Minnesota Reform Party's executive committee, said the state party has talked before about quitting, so McCluhan's threat didn't come out of the blue.
''No conversation has occurred,'' Shortridge said. ''I've never received one e-mail from anyone on whether we should disaffiliate.''
The infighting escalated as the leadership turnover drew near, with Verney, of Perot's camp, relinquishing the chairmanship to Gargan, who is aligned with Ventura.
Disputes over ideological direction and logistics have created the split. Perot's supporters generally want to preserve his vision of campaign-finance reform and restricted trade, and this week incorporated the Reform Leadership Council to attract like-minded Reform Party members into, essentially, a voting bloc to counter Gargan, McCluhan and Ventura's other supporters.
Pat Benjamin, a Perot supporter and outgoing vice chairman of the party, said the new group will raise money and advise the party in much the same way that the Democratic Leadership Council has advised the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, Perot's camp is moving forward with contracts on the presidential nominating convention to be held in August in Long Beach, Calif. To that end, Perot faction leaders on Tuesday fired convention chairman Ronn Young, who is loyal to Gargan, and replaced him with Perot backer Gerald Moan, to set up the $2.5 million convention. The convention contract already has been signed and a $2,000 deposit issued, Benjamin said.
Ventura's backers, meanwhile, are generally free traders who want the nominating convention held in the home state of the party's highest elected office-holder, Minnesota's Ventura. They see the leadership council as a power grab by Perot's followers, perhaps for a more specific purpose.
''If it becomes a show so that Ross Perot can be the candidate again, the party will really die,'' May Chote, wife of the Reform Party's Monroe County, Fla. chairman, Ray Chote, said by telephone from the couple's house boat in Key West.
The Reform Party has millions of dollars to draw presidential hopefuls. Because Perot got more than 5 percent of the vote as the party's nominee in 1996, its presidential nominee in 2000 will receive $12.6 million in federal funding.
The Reform Party has attracted celebrity names, but even they have begun to pick sides.
The commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who left the GOP, has drifted toward Perot. The billionaire developer, Donald Trump plans a public event with Ventura on Jan. 7 in Minnesota.
Trump did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for Buchanan said the developments would not change the commentator's campaign plans.
