Reform Party members aim to remove Buchanan from ballot

DALLAS (AP) -- Leaders of the Reform Party aimed to take a step toward removing Pat Buchanan's name from the party's presidential ballot Saturday.

Seven of the ten members on the party's executive committee -- the majority of whom are supporters of party founder Ross Perot -- were gathering at a Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport hotel. There, they were to vote on whether Buchanan could continue as a candidate after accusations of fraud in his campaign, said Michael Farris, the party's nominating committee chair.

A Buchanan spokesman, Brian Doherty, dismissed the efforts as frivolous and called the allegations "false and outrageous."

"They're just doing everything they can to obstruct us or impede Buchanan's nomination," Doherty said Saturday, before the meeting. "They can't defeat us legitimately, so they go about it trying to defeat us in other ways."

The committee's decision is not binding. Even if members recommend removing Buchanan, who left the Republican Party to seek the nomination, he could still end up as the Reform Party nominee. Under the party's rules, the 164-member national committee will review the executive committee's decision when it meets Aug. 8 in Long Beach, Calif.

"Anything the executive committee does today is a publicity stunt if anything," said Bob Belcher, the party's Alabama state chairman and a professed neutral.

Buchanan and Iowa physicist John Hagelin are competing for the party nomination in the primary, which is a mail-in vote for party members and other people who have asked for a ballot. Hagelin and Perot loyalists accused the Buchanan camp earlier this week of illegally padding the lists of ballot recipients with people from his Republican donor lists.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Saturday, July 29, 2000

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• McCain rolls into Philadelphia aboard campaign bus
  
• Gore will name running mate August 8
  
• GOP 'shadow convention' opens Sunday
  
• President Clinton tackles GOP at Hillary campaign event
  
• Nader tries a little one-upsmanship on eve of GOP fest
  
• Bush blasts Democratic Social Security 'scare' on pre-convention tour
  
• Convention planners, Bush aides leave little to chance at GOP gathering
  
• Stuart Rothenberg: Bush's presidential family line not necessarily an asset
  
• Former Sen. Mack Mattingly seeks to replace Coverdell in Senate
  
• Hillary Clinton blames Arafat for breakdown of peace talks
  
• Reform Party members aim to remove Buchanan from ballot
  
• Hurried primary calendar likely to be replayed in 2004
  
• McCain boosting Bush in bus tour to Philadelphia
  
• Odds dwindle for major legislative achievements
  
• Presidential library lands city in financial hot water
  
• Clinton presses for minimum wage hike in weekly radio address
  
• Pennsylvania governor predicts different kind of GOP convention
  

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