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Peter Miguel Camejo (born December 31, 1939) is a is a financier, businessman, political activist, environmentalist, author. and one of the founders of the socially responsible investment movement. In 2004, he was selected by independent candidate Ralph Nader as his Vice Presidential Running Mate.
A first generation American of Venezuelan descent, Peter Camejo was born in New York City. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley where he studied history. In 1967, after winning a student council election at Berkeley he was suspended for "using an unauthorized microphone" in a protest against the Vietnam War.
For most of his life, Camejo has participated in political movements advocating social, economic, and enviornmental justice. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Alabama, rallied with migrant farm workers, and protested the Vietnam War.
He was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president in 1976 and co-founded the California Green Party in 1991.
In 2002 he was the Green Party's official candidate in the 2002 California gubernatorial election, polling 381,700 votes or 5.3%.
In 2003 he was the leading Green Party candidate for governor in an unprecedented California recall election, in which he polled 3% of the votes. Although the actor turned Republican politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger, won the election (ousting the unpopular Democratic Party incumbent Gray Davis), Camejo's attendence and widely respected performance in all of the scheduled debates brought national support and worldwide attention to the Green Party.
In January, 2004 Peter Camejo initiated the Avocado Education Project that issued a statement known as the Avocado Declaration. The Avocado Declaration described how the Democratic and Republican Parties hinder social progress and largely benefit a small wealthy constituency. It further advocated for a fiercely independent Green Party that would be capable of attracting alienated and disillusioned mainstream party supporters.
"The Green Party is at a crossroads," the Declaration began. The central debate within the Green Party prior to its 2004 Presidential Nomination was the choice to follow Camejo's advice promulgated in The Avocado Declaration, or to follow David Cobb's strategy of "growing" the party at the local levels and protecting the Party from widespread accusations that it could assist a Republican presidential victory in the Fall.
With the nomination of David Cobb as the Green Party Presidential Candidate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 26, 2004, the Green Party rejected Peter Camejo's strategy amidst charges that the nominating process had been corrupted by Democratic Party sympathizers.
Camejo is a vice-presidential candidate in the 2004 Presidential election and is no longer seeking the Green Party nomination as a stand-in for Ralph Nader. Nader, an independent candidate, endorsed by the Reform Party, announced on June 21, 2004, that Camejo would be his running mate in the 2004 election, presumably so he could receive the endorsement of the Green Party.
He now lives in Folsom, California. Mr. Camejo is married and has two children. He is the author of The SRI Advantage- Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially, Racism Revolution Reaction 1861-1877 (1976) as well as other books.