Peter Camejo - 2004 Vice-presidential Campaign

2004 Vice-presidential Campaign

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, and 72.7% of the votes in all Green Party primary elections.

In June 2004, Camejo campaigned for the vice-presidential spot beside two-time Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader as independents, running against the Green Party nominee. They received the endorsement of the Reform 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. However, their lack of contrition about their intentions and Nader's last-minute naming of Camejo as his running mate led to the appearance of a bait and switch deception, and did not play well with Green delegates. Rejected by the Greens, Nader and Camejo continued their campaign as independent candidates.

Both Nader and Camejo said 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 pursued War in Iraq (though Green David Cobb, Libertarian Michael Badnarik, Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka, Socialist Party USA candidate Walt Brown and Socialist Workers Party candidate Róger Calero also opposed the war to varying degrees.) However, unlike all of these candidates, because Ralph Nader was regularly invited to appear on mainstream news, the Nader and Camejo team were the only candidates who had a regular voice in the mainstream media arguing for withdrawal.

The Nader/Camejo ticket came in a distant third in the election, polling approximately 460,000 votes, or 0.4% of the vote. Camejo's supporters claimed vindication of their assertion that Nader/Camejo had four-to-one support within the party, as Cobb and running mate Pat LaMarche received scarcely a fifth of their support at 119,859 votes (0.1%) a drop of 95% compared to the Green Party's 2000 national ticket. Camejo's experiences on the 2004 campaign are chronicled in Jurgen Vsych's book, "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"