Peter Camejo - Political Evolution

Political Evolution

Initially, Camejo was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyist party. As a branch organizer, he sought to reorient the SWP towards the student movement. He was the SWP's nominee for President in 1976 and won 90,986 votes, or 0.1%.

While a member of the Socialist Workers Party, Camejo wrote Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877. The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction(Pathfinder Press).

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 of democratic socialism, and the SWP expelled him.

In 1992 Camejo committed $20,000 of his own money toward establishing the Progressive Alliance of Alameda County, an organizational effort that failed to sustain itself. Camejo was quoted in 2002 as claiming that he was a watermelon—green on the outside but red on the inside.

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," a cadre group within the larger Green Party of California that ran candidates for local Green County Councils, another organizational effort that failed to sustain itself. 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 the Green Party in the aftermath of the turbulent 2004 national convention, continuing the themes of the Avocado Declaration in opposing attempts to "cozy up" to the newly-formed Progressive Democrats of America.

As a candidate for California Governor, Camejo, along with other Green Party candidates and activists Todd Chretien, Sarah Knopp, Rachel Odes, Don Bechler, Mehul Thakker, Forrest Hill, and Donna Warren, wrote California Under Corporate Rule, which he self-published.

In August 2008 he attended the convention of the Peace and Freedom Party in order to personally endorse Nader's presidential candidacy.