[Texgreen] SF Chron.: Peter Camejo Obit.

[David Pollard]

Third-party political activist Peter Camejo, a perennial candidate for 
state and national office who helped pioneer the financial market niche 
of socially responsible investments, died Saturday. He was 68.

    * Candidates have firmly rooted difference on fixing the economy
      </cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/14/MNRI12RK2N.DTL> 09.14.08

Mr. Camejo, who had been battling a recurrence of lymphoma, died at home 
in Folsom (Sacramento County).

He helped found the California Green Party in 1991 and ran three times 
for governor of California. He also ran as independent Ralph Nader's 
vice presidential running mate in the 2004 presidential election in 
which President Bush won a second term. In 1976 he ran for president as 
the Socialist Workers Party candidate.

Mr. Camejo described himself as a watermelon - red on the inside, green 
on the outside.

"Peter used his eloquence, sharp wit and barnstorming bravado to blaze a 
trail for 21st century third-party politics in the U.S.," Nader said in 
a prepared statement, which described Mr. Camejo as a "politically 
courageous champion of the downtrodden and mistreated of the entire 
Western Hemisphere."

Active in the Free Speech Movement and in protests against the Vietnam 
War as a student at UC Berkeley in the late 1960s, Mr. Camejo landed on 
then-Gov. Ronald Reagan's list of the 10 most dangerous people in 
California. School officials eventually expelled him, two quarters shy 
of a degree.

The spark of activism stayed with him as he became a leader in the 
movement to give voice to third-party candidates. He fought for 
universal health care, election reform, farmworker rights, living wage 
laws and against the death penalty and abortion restrictions.

His forum was often electoral politics, where he challenged Republicans 
and Democrats alike.

He ran for California governor in 2002, 2003 and 2006, only once 
breaking past the mark of 5 percent of the vote in grassroots campaigns 
in which he was vastly outspent by his Democratic and Republican rivals. 
He once told a reporter that he never expected to win, but wanted to 
help elevate the Greens to the mainstream political stage.

Mr. Camejo earned his living as a financier and helped start an 
investment firm, Progressive Management Asset Inc. in Oakland. Clients 
can arrange their portfolios so that their investments, for example, are 
not linked to animal testing, weapons or sweatshop labor.

He created the first environmentally screened fund - the Eco-Logical 
Trust - for a major Wall Street firm, Merrill Lynch. He also founded the 
Council for Responsible Public Investments and wrote the book, "The SRI 
Advantage: Why Socially Responsible Investing Has Outperformed Financially."

Peter Miguel Camejo was born on New Year's Eve 1939 at a hospital in 
Queens, N.Y., where his mother had flown from Venezuela to use the 
American health care system and to give her son dual U.S.-Venezuelan 
citizenship. He spent the first part of his life in his parents' 
homeland. He moved to New York at age 7 with his mother when his parents 
divorced but spent summers in Latin America. He said the poverty he saw 
as a youth in Venezuela drove his passion for social and economic justice.

After graduating from high school with a perfect score on his math SAT, 
he studied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 
later transferred to UC Berkeley. He never earned a degree.

Matt Gonzalez, a former San Francisco supervisor who is running for vice 
president with Nader as an independent, said that Mr. Camejo once told 
him that when he interviewed for his job at Merrill Lynch, "the only 
thing that was true on my resume was my name and phone number."

Gonzalez said Mr. Camejo was a success at Merrill Lynch, but was pushed 
out after the firm found out that one of its star employees had been 
arrested for protesting and had run for president as a socialist. 
Gonzalez said his friend continued to be a pioneer in the socially 
responsible investment movement and made a political mark, even though 
he did not win in any state or national election.

In the days leading to his death, Mr. Camejo completed his autobiography.

"We will all be able to get a vivid sense of the great measure of Peter 
Camejo as a sentinel force for civil rights and civil liberties, and 
expander of democracy. His lifework will inspire the political and 
economic future for a long time," Nader said.

He is survived by his wife, Morella Camejo; stepdaughter Alexandra 
Baquera of San Diego; stepson Victor Baquera of Folsom; brothers Antonio 
and Daniel Camejo and Danny Ratner.

Details for a memorial service will be announced.

E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com 
<mailto:rgordon@sfchronicle.com>.