Subject: buchanan may be barred from ballot
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2000 17:20:20 -0700



National

Buchanan May Be Barred From Ballot

The Associated Press
Jun 4 2000 6:42PM ET


LOS ANGELES (AP) - Longtime Reform Party members here are pushing to give
conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan a choice: Either promise to abide
by certain rules or wave goodbye to ballot access in the nation's largest
state.

An aide to Buchanan, who is pursuing the third party's nomination, says any
such policy is merely a lunge for publicity by the conservative
commentator's political enemies. What counts, Buchanan said Sunday, is his
drive for delegates to the national convention.

``The rest of it is horse-race nonsense,'' he said on Fox News Sunday.

Eight of the state board's 13 directors signed off on a resolution Saturday
that said the California chapter of Perot's Reform Party would split from
the national organization - and thus provide no ballot in California for its
nominee's name on Election Day - unless Buchanan agrees:

That the national convention delegates, not he, will select a running mate;

To not apply litmus tests on social issues to that running mate, and;

To not add his anti-abortion position or other views on social policy to the
Reform Party platform, which is silent on those issues.

Asked that day to respond to each of those challenges, Buchanan said he
recognizes the party's procedure for picking vice presidential candidates,
but insisted that regardless, his running mate would be ``pro-life.''

Buchanan did not answer the second question, but he has said that he would
not accept a running mate who supports abortion rights or is homosexual.

As for the third question, Buchanan said he would not try to change the
platform this year.

Supporters of the resolution felt that his answers were too vague and were
putting the measure before the state convention on Sunday. Some favored
softening the language by taking out Buchanan's name and challenging all of
the party's presidential candidates to agree to those provisions. None of
the other candidates are nationally known, and none besides Buchanan has
challenged those provisions.

If any one of them demurred, the state party would disaffiliate after the
national convention Aug. 10-13 in Long Beach, according to a new draft of
the resolution.

Sources close to the effort said they likely would push to rejoin the
national Reform Party next year.

Tim Haley, Buchanan's political director, monitored the proceedings and said
the proposal is a publicity stunt.

``It's a small group of malcontented people that want to cause trouble,'' he
said. ``All they care about is getting some attention for what I think is
the minority view.''

California, home to a fifth of the nation's voters, is the latest state to
consider disaffiliating from the national party to protest Buchanan's social
positions and the tactics his campaign has used to win national convention
delegates. State chapters in such states as Colorado and Kentucky have
condemned Buchanan's campaign and discussed splitting from the national
party. And in Iowa this weekend, the state party's office holders resigned
in protest.

For his part, Buchanan maintains that he has the right to pursue the Reform
Party's presidential nomination in whatever way he sees fit and has
suggested that he would rescue the bickering organization from
self-destruction.

During a rousing speech here on Saturday, he urged party members to focus on
issues all sides hold in common - primarily trade and other foreign policy.

``If we're not united, we can't reach out and get those conservative
Republicans, we can't get those union Democrats, we can't get those folks
who voted for Ross Perot and have walked away from politics,'' Buchanan told
about 400 people in attendance at the state's Reform Party convention.