Buchanan Makes V.P. Pick

ByABC News
August 11, 2000, 1:40 PM

L O N G   B E A C H, Calif., Aug. 11 -- Reform Party presidential contender Pat Buchanan has named schoolteacher Ezola Foster as his running mate.

Foster, a 62-year-old black woman, is a virtual political unknown.

Buchanan introduced his new running mate as the first black lady to run on a major party ticket. Foster denied, however, that race would play a major role in the campaign.

Theres only one race that were interested in and thats the race for the White House, she told reporters, one we intend to win.

Originally from Louisiana, Foster spent the last three decades in Los Angeles where she was an active supporter of Californias Proposition 187, the 1984 ballot measure that sought to deny most forms of state aid to illegal immigrants. That measure passed but was later invalidated by the courts.

She is a graduate of Texas Southern University and earned a masters degree from Pepperdine University. She has 33 years experience as a schoolteacher and administrator and vowed to make education the focus of her vice-presidential candidacy.

For all children, the schools are failing not because theres not enough money, she said, but because theres too much government involvement.

Foster was a Democrat for 17 years before switching to the GOP in 1976. According to the Buchanan campaign, she was the first black woman to appear on the ballot as a Republican candidate for the California State Assembly. In 1996, Foster re-registered as an independent. She is also a member of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.

The announcement comes as Buchanan, a three-time Republican presidential candidate, is embroiled in a bitter dispute with a rival Reform Party faction which claims that he has illegally seized control of the party apparatus and furthermore that his socially conservative agenda is at odds with the party platform.

ABCNEWS Rebecca Bershadker contributed to this report.