Peter Camejo | |
|---|---|
 Camejo in 2006 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Peter Miguel Camejo Guanche (1939-12-31)December 31, 1939 New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 13, 2008(2008-09-13) (aged 68) Folsom,California, U.S. |
| Party | Socialist Workers(before 1980) Green(2002–2004; 2006–2008) Reform(2004–2006) |
| Spouse | Morella Camejo |
| Parent |
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| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Peter Miguel Camejo Guanche (December 31, 1939 – September 13, 2008) was an American author, activist, politician and Sailing Olympian ofVenezuelan descent. In the2004 United States presidential election, he was selected by independent candidateRalph Nader as hisvice-presidential running mate on a ticket which had the endorsement of theReform Party.[1][2]
Camejo was a three-timeGreen Party gubernatorial candidate in California, most recently in2006, when he received 2.3 percent of the vote. Camejo also ran in the2003 California gubernatorial recall election finishingfourth in a field of 135 candidates (2.8%), and in2002, finishing third with 5.3%. In the1976 presidential election he ran for theSocialist Workers Party, receiving 90,310 votes.
Camejo was a first-generation American ofVenezuelan descent. At the time of his birth, his mother was residing in theQueens borough ofNew York City. Although Camejo spent most of his early childhood in Venezuela, he was a "natural born citizen" of the United States and therefore constitutionally eligible for the U.S. presidency later in life.
His parents, Elvia Guanche andDr. Daniel Camejo Octavio,[3] divorced when their son was seven. Camejo then resided with his mother in the United States and returned to Venezuela during summer holidays to visit family. In later youth Camejo showed talent as ayachtsman, competing in 1960 for Venezuela at theRome Olympics with his father in theStar class, where they took 21st place.[4]
Camejo entered theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, involving himself insoccer and, increasingly,left-wing politics. Later he studied history at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where he won election to student council. His participation in a protest of theVietnam War in 1967 led to his suspension from the university for "using an unauthorized microphone." Then-governorRonald Reagan deemed Camejo one of California's ten most dangerous citizens due to his presence atanti-war protests.[5] He also participated in one of theSelma civil rights marches.[5]
Initially, Camejo was a member of theSocialist Workers Party (SWP), aTrotskyist party. As a branch organizer, he sought to reorient the SWP towards the student movement.[6]
Camejo's first political campaign on behalf of the SWP came in 1967 when as a 27-year old he ran for mayorBerkeley, California.[7] He was the SWP's nominee forPresident in 1976 and won 90,986 votes, or 0.1%.
While a member of the Socialist Workers Party, Camejo wroteRacism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877. The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction, published by the party's publishing house,Pathfinder Press.[8] He also met withJ. Posadas.[9]
The SWP's policy was to turn its members into "proletarians" by having them take jobs in factories and advocate for a worker-based class struggle. By 1980, Camejo came to disagree with this policy in favor ofdemocratic socialism, and the SWP expelled him. He led the third dissident group of the SWP and formed North Star Network in 1983.[10][11]
In 1992 Camejo committed $20,000 of his own money toward establishing the Progressive Alliance of Alameda County, an organizational effort that did not sustain itself.[12]
Camejo was quoted in 2002 as claiming that he was a watermelon—green on the outside but red on the inside.[13] However, in January 2004 Camejo initiated theAvocado Declaration which comparesGreens, to avocados."An avocado is Green on the outside and Green on the inside."[14]
Just over a month after the 2004 election, Camejo was elected as one of California's delegates to the National Committee of the Green Party and established the GDI, "Greens for Democracy and Independence,"[15] a cadre group within the larger Green Party of California that ran candidates for local Green County Councils.[16] At the 2005 Green Party National Convention, Camejo stated that he would not be a candidate for president in 2008.
Camejo wrote a number of articles concerning the divisions evident in theGreen Party in the aftermath of the turbulent2004 national convention, continuing the themes of the Avocado Declaration in opposing attempts to "cozy up" to the newly formedProgressive Democrats of America.
In August 2008 he attended the convention of thePeace and Freedom Party in order to personally endorse Nader's presidential candidacy.[5]
Camejo ran for Governor of California three times, against incumbent governorsGray Davis andArnold Schwarzenegger in 2002 and 2006, and in the 2003 recall election in which Schwarzenegger replaced Davis as governor.
In2002, Camejo ran uncontested in the California Green Party gubernatorial primary. In the general election, he ran as part of the first full slate of Green candidates for all seven of California's partisan constitutional offices. Camejo lost the election to GovernorGray Davis, but he polled 393,036 votes, for 5.3% of the vote, the largest vote total for athird-party in the California governor's race since1946, when Henry R. Schmidt of theProhibition Party polled 7.1%. Because the San Francisco Green Party endorsed him, Camejo earned more votes inSan Francisco thanRepublican gubernatorial nomineeBill Simon, a rarity in third-party politics.
In 2003, he was the endorsedGreen Party candidate for governor (although several other Greens appeared on the ballot) in an unprecedentedCalifornia recall election againstGray Davis, in which he polled242,247 votes for 2.8%, coming in fourth in a field of 135 certified candidates. In a strange preview of the divisions about to erupt on the left in the following year, Camejo first cooperated with, and then competed with, fellow recall candidateArianna Huffington.
In2006, Camejo made his third bid for Governor of California against incumbentArnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Party nomineePhil Angelides. Camejo received 193,553 votes, or 2.3% of the popular vote.
Peter Daniels criticized Camejo for "lending his support to the right-wing effort to depose California governorGray Davis" by recall in 2004.[17] However, theGreen Party state convention easily voted to endorse Camejo as a recall replacement candidate.
Camejo was submitted as a candidate in the Green Party of California's March 2, 2004, Presidential Preference Primary. Before the primary, he made it known that he was not planning to run for president and that any delegates pledged to him would not be committed to vote for him after the first round. The former gubernatorial candidate received 33,753 votes (75.9%) of the Green Party membership's support in California,[18] and 72.7% of the votes in all Green Party primary elections.[citation needed]
In June 2004, Camejo campaigned for the vice-presidential spot beside two-time Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader as independents (i.e. Nader never actually joined the Green Party), running against whoever the Green Party nominee might be. They received the endorsement of theReform Party, which gave them ballot access in several states they would not otherwise have. With votes for Nader added in, the Nader/Camejo ticket had what appeared to be an insurmountable 83% of Green voters behind their candidacies going into the Green Party National Convention in Milwaukee.[citation needed] However many delegates were alienated by non-Green Party member Ralph Nader's wanting the party's hard-won ballot lines, and by Camejo's maneuver serving as a proxy for Nader in California. After an extremely contentious proceeding the convention nominated Green Party membersDavid Cobb andPat LaMarche for the Green Party ticket instead.[19] Rejected by the Greens, Nader and Camejo continued their campaign as independent candidates.
Both Nader and Camejo asserted that one of the main reason they ran in the 2004 election was because there were no other national candidates demanding an immediate withdrawal of American troops from what they believe is an immoral and unconstitutionally pursuedWar in Iraq (though minor party national candidates GreenDavid Cobb,LibertarianMichael Badnarik,Constitution Party candidateMichael Peroutka,Socialist Party USA candidateWalt Brown and Socialist Workers Party candidateRóger Calero all strongly opposed the war). The Nader/Camejo were the only candidates who had a regular voice in the mainstream media arguing for withdrawal, since Ralph Nader was regularly invited to appear on mainstream news, and none of the other candidates received mainstream media coverage.
The Nader/Camejo ticket came in a very distant third in the election, polling approximately 460,000 votes, or 0.4% of the vote. Camejo's supporters claimed this result vindicated the Nader/Camejo team seeking the Green Party's endorsement (of them as non-Green Party candidates) since Cobb/LaMarche received less than one third that many votes with a total of 119,859 votes (0.1%). This was a drop of 95% compared to the Green Party's 2000 national ticket of Nader and his running mateWinona LaDuke. Camejo supporter's claimed that the difference between these outcomes was made up by Nader/Camejo having four-to-one support compared to Cobb/LaMarche within the Green Party. Camejo's experiences on the 2004 campaign are chronicled inJurgen Vsych's book, "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"[20]
The Nader/Camejo Campaign cooperated loosely with an effort by the Green Party Cobb/LaMarche and Libertarian Party Badnarik/Campagna campaigns to do hand recounts across the country in states where vulnerable electronic voting machines had been used and anomalous results were questioned. Nader/Camejo undertook a challenge to the results in New Hampshire.[21]
Camejo is the author ofThe SRI Advantage: Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially.
At the time of his death, Camejo was engaged in writingNorth Star: A Memoir, published in May 2010 byHaymarket Books.[22]
In the run-up to the June 6, 2006, primary elections in California, Camejo helped create a cadre group within the larger Green Party of California, the Green IDEA (later known as IDEA PAC), a Californiapolitical action committee espousing "Independence, Democracy, Empowerment, and Accountability," to support candidates for county councils, the locally elected leadership bodies of the Green Party of California. The IDEA PAC was not raising or spending money as of 2010.
Camejo died oflymphoma on September 13, 2008, at his home inFolsom, California.[23] He was survived by his wife, Morella Camejo; stepdaughter Alexandra Baquero, stepson Victor Baquero, and brothers Antonio and Daniel Camejo and Danny Ratner.[24] He last worked as the Chief Executive Officer of Progressive Asset Management,[25] a financial investment firm that encourages socially responsible projects.
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Socialist Workers Party nominee forPresident of the United States 1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Reform nominee forVice President of the United States 2004 | Succeeded by Frank McEnulty |
