LEWISTON – A tendency to visualize political goals through the prism of religion makes notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden and President Bush more similar than different according to the running mate of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

Speaking to about 50 students and supporters Monday at Bates College, Peter Camejo assailed Bush’s use of the Bible to justify his opposition to gay marriage. The 64-year-old financier, businessman and political activist from Folsom, Calif., said Bush’s apparent belief that “God had sent him” to wage war in Iraq was a “problem.”

“People who use the words ‘God’ and ‘war’ in the same sentence need help, and Bush in that sense is a mirror image of Osama bin Laden,” Camejo said. “He walks around with a 2,000-year-old book that says that slavery is OK, but not homosexuality. This is a guy who literally thinks the world was made in seven days.”

Camejo said he and Nader are convinced President Bush and Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts have common goals to control access to world oil reserves and that the two are only separated by differing strategies.

“They want to go against the United Nations charter and that’s what [President Bush] reflects and what Kerry supports,” he said. “We think that’s totally wrong. We’re just a species. We live on this planet, all of us. And if we don’t come together worldwide to begin solving this problem, we’re going to be facing crises beyond anything we can imagine.”

Chastising both party candidates for supporting the war in Iraq, Camejo said President Bush and Kerry represent only a tiny minority of people who believe there is any justifiable basis for continued fighting.

“There’s not a country in the Arab world, Europe or Africa, Asia or Latin America that supports Bush and Kerry’s policies in Iraq – except for the possible exception of Israel,” he said.

Painting a dismal American landscape, Camejo described the United States as a country in decline economically and politically. He said 90 percent of Americans have experienced no gains in income over the last 30 years when salaries are adjusted for inflation. As incomes decline, Camejo said, more and more jobs continue to be exported beyond U.S. borders.

“Did you know that the mail from Seattle is sorted in Mexico City?” he said. “They put the letters on a conveyor belt [monitored] by a television camera, and a worker sits in Mexico City and punches in the zip code and the machine sorts the mail. The worker gets $1 an hour to replace the laid-off worker who was getting $15 an hour.”

Nader, a former Green Party presidential candidate, and Camejo, a former Green Party gubernatorial candidate in California, are on the ballot as independents in 36 states. Their bid is being challenged in eight states, including Maine. Nader failed to convince the Green Party to join a coalition of other parties to endorse his independent presidential bid this year. His decision to include Camejo as his running mate has created a schism among Greens, attracting many of the party’s more progressive members.

During the party’s convention, the Greens rejected Nader’s endorsement offer and chose to run David Cobb for president and Yarmouth resident Pat LaMarche for vice president. The emotional split continues to be a sensitive issue for many Greens. Camejo described the differences as “internal problems” within the party and denied contributing to the divisive atmosphere among Green supporters.

“On the contrary, most of the Greens are working on the Nader campaign, and as I go everywhere, we’re recruiting more people to the Green Party,” he said. “The internal problems we have will be worked out at the next convention.”