Peter Camejo

Peter Camejo

Peter Miguel Camejo (born December 31, 1939 in Queens , New York , † September 13, 2008 in Folsom , California ) was an American businessman, financier , writer , environmentalist and politician . He was one of the founders of an investment movement that has a special focus on social responsibility. In 2004 he ran together with Ralph Nader in the presidential election as a candidate for the office of vice president .

Career

Camejo's parents were immigrants from Venezuela . His mother lived in Queens , New York when he was born. This gave Peter Camejo US citizenship and met the conditions for eligibility for the office of US President. After spending his early years in Venezuela, his parents divorced when he was seven, and he returned to the United States with his mother. During the summer vacation he regularly returned to Venezuela to visit his relatives. In 1960 he took part for Venezuela at the Summer Olympics in sailing .

He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where he played soccer. There, and later with the study of history at the University of California at Berkeley and his interest in left-wing politics began. After being elected to a student council in 1967, he was suspended for using an "unauthorized microphone" in a protest against the Vietnam War .

For most of his life, Camejo was involved in political movements that advocated progressive social , economic and environmental policies . He marched with Martin Luther King in Selma , protested with farm workers from migrant families and demonstrated against the Vietnam War. Later he was seen as a pragmatic, financially rather conservative Green politician.

politics

Camejo was originally involved with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist party . He was a presidential candidate in 1976 and represented a political program of democratic socialism .

Gubernatorial elections

In the 1990s, Camejo joined the Green Party . In 2002 he was their candidate for the gubernatorial elections in California. It received 381,700 votes (5.3%). That was the best result for a third party alongside the Democrats and Republicans in 50 years.

In 2003 he was again the green candidate for governor in the recall election in California. There he got 2.8% of the vote. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger won the election ahead of the then-incumbent Democratic Governor Gray Davis , Camejo's candidacy and widely respected appearance in television debates drew worldwide attention to the American Greens. Camejo was fourth best out of 135 applicants.

Presidential election

In January 2004, Camejo initiated the Avocado Education Project and issued a statement on it that became known as the Avocado Declaration . That statement called the actions of the Democrats and Republicans to work together for the benefit of a small, rich electorate as a hindrance to social progress. The statement also advocated a strictly independent Green Party capable of attracting both non-voters and disaffected supporters of the two major parties. The declaration begins with “The Green Party is at a crossroads”.

In fact, the central discussion within the Green Party in the run-up to the nomination for the presidential elections was whether one should pursue Camejo's advice, a strategy of confrontation with the major parties as announced in the Avocado Declaration , or whether the party should be based on a (federal) state and should concentrate on the local level to support the Democrats in the fall. While Camejo and his allies sought to attract new party members and supporters through sharply worded campaign themes, others - remembering the experience of the 2000 presidential elections - feared a setback for the party if they were to act as "helpers" in the re-election of George W. Bush would be perceived.

Camejo brought himself into play for a candidacy in the candidate primaries (so-called Presidential Preference Primary ) in California on March 2, 2004. Prior to the primaries, he announced that he had no plans to run for the presidency and that any party delegate loyal to him in the primaries should be considered "unbound" to allow greater flexibility in the nomination process Party to achieve. Camejo got 76% of the vote.

In June 2004, Camejo accepted the candidacy for the vice presidency of Ralph Nader's independent presidential campaign .

At the Green election conference in Milwaukee on June 26th, the party was divided: some members took the position of “None of the above” or “Anyone but Bush” (such as: “Anyone except Bush "), tended to support David Cobb's presidential candidacy, while Camejo's supporters (the" Greens for Democracy and Independence ") rallied behind him and called for Green support for the Nader / Camejo campaign. The disputes over Nader's absence at the convention, his non-membership in the party and Camejo's deception in the California primary and his alliance with the Reform Party turned the nomination vote into a referendum on the party's future strategy. David Cobb won the vote in the 2nd round.

Nader and Camejo continued their campaign as independent candidates, supported by the Reform Party from May 11th. Both said the main reason for running is because no other nationwide candidate is calling for an immediate withdrawal of US forces from what they believe to be the immoral and unconstitutional war in Iraq . Although Cobb, the libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik , the Constitution Party candidate , Michael Peroutka , the Socialist Workers Party candidate Róger Calero, and the socialist candidate Walt Brown also opposed the war, Nader was the only candidate due to his nationwide media presence was able to regularly call for troops to be withdrawn in mainstream media.

In the election, Nader / Camejo finally received 460,000 votes (0.38%) nationwide. This result is considerably worse than the 2.8 million votes that Nader received as a candidate for the Greens in the last presidential election in 2000. But the choice was markedly different from the previous one because of the war and Bush's policies. Many green voters this time voted for the Democrats to prevent Bush.

Last campaigns

At the Green Party meeting in 2005, Camejo announced that he had no plans to run as a candidate in 2008. Instead, he was considering running for governor in California again in 2006. He was later a candidate for election, albeit with some resistance. In April, the green local association San Francisco declined , citing Camejo's actions and his criticism of green activists, to support his third attempt at governorship.

Family, End of Life and Publications

Peter Camejo was married and had two children. Most recently, he lived in Folsom , California and was Chief Executive Officer of Progressive Asset Management at an investment firm promoting socially responsible projects. He died of lymphoma on September 13, 2008 .

Camejo was, among other things, the author of “The SRI-Advantage - Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially”. His last book "California: Under Corporate Rule" was published in 2006.

Web links

• Peter Camejo in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• CNN factsheet on Camejo
• The Avocado Declaration ( Memento of April 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) []

Individual evidence

1. ^ Governor of California ( July 5, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive )