(CNSNews.com) - Two days before the Green Party's convention in Milwaukee, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader selected longtime party activist Peter Camejo as his running mate. The move might shore up the Green Party's endorsement of Nader, according to a party leader.

Camejo, 64, ran as the Green candidate in California's 2003 recall election and the 2002 gubernatorial election. He received more than 212,000 votes in the recall race, earning a fourth-place finish with 2.8 percent of the vote. Camejo also ran for president under the Socialist Workers Party in 1976.

Camejo had been considered one of two leading contenders for the Green Party's presidential nomination, according to a report by The Associated Press. The party is meeting in Milwaukee starting Wednesday.

"This is an opportunity for Nader to make an overture to the party membership," Ben Manski, one of five co-chairs of the Green Party, told the AP. "I think it certainly would put him much more in the running but not a guarantee."

Nader ran as the Green candidate in the 2000 presidential election. Although he is not seeking the party's nomination this year, Nader still hopes for the Green Party's endorsement, which would assure his spot on the ballot in 22 states.

In the close race for president in 2000, Nader received about 3 percent of the vote. Some supporters of former Vice President Al Gore, the Democrat candidate in 2000, consider Nader a spoiler for taking away votes from Gore in battleground states like Florida.

In touting his running mate's credentials, Nader noted Camejo's opposition to so-called "corporate control of our government" on issues ranging from the environment to health care to working conditions.

"Camejo has also been a long-term opponent of the war and occupation in Iraq and the lock-step pro-Israel policy of the United States when it comes to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli issue," Nader said in a prepared statement.

A first-generation Venezuelan-American, Camejo has devoted most of his life to political and social causes, according to a biography released by the Nader campaign. Camejo is currently the chairman and co-founder of a broker-dealer firm that promotes socially conscious investments.

A graduate of University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he also marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and actively opposed the Vietnam War, according to his biography.

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