Camejo controversy

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(For newcomers to Marxmail, the Peter Camejo mentioned in the article below 
was a leader of American Trotskyism in the 1960s and 70s.)

LA Times, Oct. 7, 2002

A Debate Erupts Over the Debate

Politics: Simon asks the Green Party candidate to be his guest. The effect 
could be an ideological double-team of Davis.

By MARK Z. BARABAK and NICHOLAS RICCARDI , TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon Jr. made a last-ditch effort 
to upend today's debate with Gov. Gray Davis, inviting as his personal 
guest a Green Party candidate and political polar opposite whose presence 
would have signaled an effort to ideologically double-team the incumbent 
Democrat.

The invitee, Peter Camejo, had not been included in the debate by the host 
Los Angeles Times because he failed to reach a threshold of viability for 
third-party candidates. Officials at the paper informed the Simon campaign 
that Camejo would not be allowed into the paper's headquarters, where the 
two-man debate is scheduled to begin at noon.

Camejo said Sunday that he will come anyway as Simon's guest.

The last-minute tussle, which included a short threat Sunday by the Davis 
forces to boycott the debate, underscored the stakes for both campaigns 
today. Comfortably ahead in the polls, Davis is seeking to deal with as few 
unpredictable events as possible before the Nov. 5 election. Simon, 
trailing since a confluence of negative publicity dominated much of the 
summer, is trying mightily to shake up the race.

Simon's effort to leap ahead of Davis has long included the strange 
alliance between himself?a conservative Republican? and the far more 
liberal Camejo. The Simon campaign for months has pushed for Camejo to be 
included in debates and has sent memos to political reporters talking up 
the Green Party candidate's prospects, hoping to draw attention to 
weaknesses on Davis' left flank. Expanding that move onto a debate stage 
would have been a risky venture, but Simon appeared to be aiming for a 
debate in which Camejo came at Davis from the left and Simon from the 
right. Such pincer moves against the front-runner are common in 
multi-candidate debates.

full: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-debate7oct07.story


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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