Peter Camejo, Ralph Nader’s running mate for the upcoming presidential election, has been politically active for most of his 64 years.
According to CNN.com, Camejo, a first-generation Venezuelan American, earned a perfect score on the math section of the SAT exam, and enrolled in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study math after he graduated from high school, but dropped out to participate in civil rights work. He was involved in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the ’60s, and even marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Alabama.
He attended the University of California at Berkeley, but was expelled in 1967, two quarters before his expected graduation. He was officially expelled for the “unauthorized use of a microphone” at a Vietnam War demonstration three months prior; Camejo, however, claims he was actually expelled for his anti-war sentiment.
In 1968, the Bank of America distributed flyers that listed then-President Ronald Reagan’s “10 Most Dangerous Californians.” The list included Camejo because he was “present at all anti-war demonstrations.” Years later, Camejo said that Regan was responsible for his expulsion from UC Berkeley.
Camejo ran for president of the United States in 1976 on the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) ticket, and received 90,310 votes. A decade later, Camejo was thrown out of the SWP for accusing the party’s leadership of corruption. In 1991, he joined the California Green Party as a founding member. Camejo refers to himself as a “watermelon”: “green on the outside, red on the inside.”
Camejo has worked as an investment broker for Prudential Financial and Merrill Lynch. He created Merrill Lynch’s Eco-Logical Trust, which was the first environmentally monitored fund of a major investment firm. In 1987, Camejo, co-founded the Progressive Asset Management Fund (PAM), which encourages investors to be socially conscious in their financial decisions. Camejo, who is director and Chair of the Board of Directors of PAM, will be on unpaid leave until Nov. 3, one day after the presidential election.
According to Votecamejo.org, the Web site for Camejo’s 2003 – 04 California gubernatorial campaigns as the candidate for the Green Party, he served on the board of directors of Earth Share, an alliance of the 41 top environmental groups in the United States, for five years. Vote-smart.org reported that he was with Earth Share 1991 – 98.
In 1995, Camejo helped form the Environmental Justice Fund, which funds and promotes unity among environmentalists of color.
Votecamejo.org lists several of Camejo’s priority issues, including Latino labor rights. Camejo has worked on behalf of these rights in the United States, and to free political prisoners in Latin America, including Peruvian Trotskyist Hugo Blanco.
Camejo is in favor of same-sex marriage. “You know, the same percentage of people are gay and lesbian as are left-handed,” he said. “Let’s try to figure that out. How can it be that a left-handed person can get married to another left-handed person. Left-handed people can do anything they want. I say, give homosexuals the same rights we give left-handed people.”
Camejo also supports the enactment of a living wage, the use of solar power, campaign finance reform, run-off elections on the state level, and universal health care.
Nader and Camejo are running as Independents. Nader ran with environmental activist Winona LaDuke on the Green Party’s ticket during the 2000 presidential election; this year’s Green Party candidates are David Cobb and Pat LaMarche.
First-year Scott Reichhelm, who has worked with the Green Party in Baltimore, believes the Green Party did not endorse Nader for president because “the public associates Nader with a top reason’s for Bush’s presidency, so when they hear ‘Nader,’ they get defensive.”
Camejo, however, has said, “The last thing I want to be is a spoiler.”
This article is part of a weekly series about the upcoming presidential
election.