In the main hall of the convention center, supporters of Pat Buchanan are ready for Buchanan’s stirring acceptance speech on Saturday. Meanwhile, in the adjoining performing arts center, the Perotistas of 1992 and 1996 are holding an alternative Reform convention, which will nominate John Hagelin, an amiable quantum physicist who, when not running for president, leads troops of transcendental mediators in Iowa. The Hagelin folks have already filed two complaints with the Federal Election Commission, alleging that the Buchanan crowd acted fraudulently and are just plain bad. Come Monday, both factions will submit requests to the FEC for the party’s $12.5 million in matching funds. Which, of course, is the real reason they all came here in the first place.
Einstein supposedly said that only a handful of people would ever grasp his theory of relativity; even fewer can comprehend what the Reform Party is actually fighting about. But it’s worth a try.
First, it’s useful to understand how Reform picks its presidential nominee. The process goes something like this: candidates first have to get themselves or the party on the ballot in ten states where the Reform Party doesn’t already have a ballot line in the upcoming election. (This year, Reform was already on the ballot in 20 states, thanks to Ross Perot’s showing in 1996.) Once the candidates have qualified for the Reform primary, ballots are sent out to three groups of people: those who are registered as Reform party members, those who signed petitions asking that Reform candidates be placed on the state ballot and those who request a Reform ballot from any of the candidates’ campaigns. About 900,000 ballots were mailed out last month. After the results are in, if the delegates to the convention think there is evidence of fraud, two thirds of them can vote to overturn the results and choose a nominee directly. Remember that last part, because it gets important soon.
The FEC dispute centers on two main allegations. First, the Hagelin troops are charging Buchanan with election fraud. They say that as many as 500,000 of the names Buchanan submitted to get primary ballots, people who supposedly signed his petitions in various states, are actually longtime supporters from his previous campaigns. Buchanan’s team doesn’t exactly deny that; they say that in conversations with the party, they were led to believe they could submit those names, and they have refused to turn over any documentation
The second charge is a bit more complicated. With all the turmoil, Buchanan’s strategists decided that the safest route to the nomination was to control two thirds of the convention delegates, so they could overturn the election results and nominate Buchanan directly. There was just one problem: in 10 states where the Buchanan Brigades had taken over delegations, former Reform officials were challenging them, claiming they should not be seated at the convention. If Buchanan controlled those 10 states, he would also control the convention. Without them, he might lose. So the party chairman called a special meeting of all the state delegations for last Tuesday to decide which delegations would be seated at the convention.
That’s where the shoving and shouting came in. The parliamentarian hired by the party to help keep order (yes, apparently there are parliamentarians-for-hire) advised that as each of the 10 state challenges was considered, only delegates from the other 40 states should be allowed to vote. But under that scenario, Buchanan would have lost control of the convention; of the 40 seated delegations, only about 18 were loyal to him. So the party chairman brushed that advice aside and decreed that every state delegate in the room, including those being challenged, would be allowed to vote. Thus Buchanan had an easy majority. That’s when the Hagelin folks stormed out, taking 22 delegations with them and starting a second convention just down the hall.
So the FEC will have to consider a second charge: that Buchanan’s supporters ignored the parliamentarian and illegally seated the convention delegates. Buchanan’s team counters that under the party rules, the chairman can pretty much do whatever he wants. When the primary tally comes back today, Buchanan’s delegates are expected to set aside the results and nominate him directly.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, you probably want to know which side will win. The answer may well be neither. No one will likely get the $12.5 million (about $1 million a week for campaigning after Labor Day) until the matter is settled. Once the FEC makes a decision, the losing side will almost certainly file a lawsuit in federal court. And remember: the FEC is made up of Democrats and Republicans, and they have 60 days to rule one way or the other. Don’t be surprised if they take their time.
