Reform Party Convention proceeds with dueling nominations

By Matt Smith/CNN

LONG BEACH, California (CNN) -- Iowa physicist John Hagelin and former commentator Pat Buchanan accepted the presidential nominations of rival wings of the Reform Party on Friday, further muddying the party's already unclear future.

Hagelin promised to wage the most vigorous third-party campaign since Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and told about 300 delegates at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center he would follow the model of Reform Party founder H. Ross Perot.

"It is with the utmost pride and sense of duty, and with the utmost honor, that I accept your charge, your confidence, your faith in my ability to represent you and the highest principles upon which this party was founded," Hagelin said. "I accept with humility and with pride the mantle of H. Ross Perot."

Hagelin credited Perot's presidential runs in 1992 and 1996 for the two major parties' working to eliminate the federal budget deficit, raising awareness of international trade issues and interest in campaign finance reform, just as earlier third parties brought about women's suffrage, workers' compensation and child labor laws. He urged party members to "take ownership of this party, build strength and grow this party into America's next major party."

Hagelin, the former standard-bearer of the Natural Law Party, was brought into the dueling third party by leaders hoping to stop Buchanan from claiming the nomination and the $12.6 million in federal matching funds that come with it.

Though many of those party officials worked closely with Perot, the Texas billionaire has taken no public position on the rupture between its pro-Hagelin and pro-Buchanan wings, and his 1996 running mate, Pat Choate, has endorsed Buchanan.

Hagelin filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, seeking its recognition as the rightful nominee. He won the wing's nomination after delegates to the anti-Buchanan convention disqualified the former Republican White House aide and sometime CNN commentator, saying Buchanan's campaign would not allow party officials access to the voting lists needed to verify the results of its write-in primary.

Buchanan and his campaign manager -- his sister, Angela "Bay" Buchanan -- have said they followed Reform Party rules in submitting lists of voters they wanted to receive ballots in the Reform primary.

Buchanan won that primary by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, taking 49,529 of the 78,068 votes cast, officials announced at the Hagelin-led convention. Hagelin claimed 28,539 votes, or 36.6 percent, to Buchanan's 63.4 percent. Chairman Jim Mangia said the results were read even though they were "tainted" by the Buchanan campaign, and the convention voted to disqualify him.

Hagelin is expected to offer a vice presidential nominee Saturday.

Hagelin addresses the party's breakaway convention, Thursday

Around the corner in the Long Beach Convention Center, Buchanan delegates will rely on their own vote to declare him the Reform Party nominee.

"In a true democracy, voting wins," Gerry Moan, chairman of the Buchanan wing of the largest third party in the U.S., told delegates. "You will decide our nominee."

The two camps split on Tuesday after a raucous Reform National Committee meeting in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles. The pro-Hagelin wing of the party made a show of marching on the convention hall Thursday morning, then launched their own convention when they were turned away.

The Buchanan convention has tried to conduct business as usual, going on with its roll call as planned Friday night despite a walkout by dozens of delegates.

Representatives of the New York Independence Party -- the largest state Reform Party chapter, whose representatives were unseated Thursday by the Buchananites-walked out Friday after rejecting a compromise offered allowing them to rejoin the convention. Their walkout was joined by delegates from several states, including Alabama, California, Kansas and Pennsylvania: Most defected to the Hagelin camp, where delegates met them with enthusiastic applause.

Frank MacKay, chairman of the New York affiliate, said that the compromise offered by the Buchanan camp would have violated New York election laws.

Buchanan names educator as running mate

Buchanan himself moved forward by naming his running mate: Ezola Foster, a California anti-immigration activist and a 33-year veteran teacher and administrator in Los Angeles public schools. A former Democrat and a longtime teacher and administrator in Los Angeles public schools, Foster served as a co-chair in Buchanan's 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential bids.

"She has stood up for flag and family, God and country her whole life," Buchanan said. "She is a lifelong Christian. She believes in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and she believes strongly that America's borders ought to be protected."

Foster, an African-American, is an advocate of restricting immigration, writing that immigrants threaten black workers' jobs. She campaigned for California's Proposition 187, which would have banned illegal immigrants from receiving public services, and has urged that the military be deployed along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration.

She founded Americans for Family Values, which calls for the restoration of traditional morals; and she said Friday that the Confederate battle flag "should be honored as part of our history."

"We have been called bigoted and racist and all kinds of names," she said. "Why? Because we are concerned about our American children and our American schools. We are concerned about our American workers."

A native of Louisiana, Foster, 62, grew up in poverty, earned bachelors' and masters' degrees and spent 33 years as a teacher and administrator in inner-city Los Angeles public schools.

While Buchanan said he and Foster would concentrate on issues of American sovereignty and immigration, the selection also highlights a part of Buchanan's campaign that has rankled many Reform Party members and contributed to the party's split this week in Long Beach. Buchanan's focus on social issues such as abortion and gay rights clashes with the party's platform, which says such matters are not part of the party's agenda.

In a "Statement of Personal Belief" made Thursday, Buchanan vowed that as president he would crusade to stamp out various forms of immorality, and "bring God back" to education and to government. Foster, he said Friday, would be charged with heading up that task.

Buchanan denounced "rampant homosexuality" as "a sign of cultural decadence and moral decline from Rome to Weimar" and lambasted Hollywood for serving up "vulgar" entertainment.

CNN's Matt Smith and Ian Christopher McCaleb, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.