Race for Congress: Victor Good

Race for Congress: Victor Good
Good pushes for major campaign-finance reform

Oct. 26, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer


	Reform Party candidate Victor Good holds up a sign while campaigning last week. "There’s a huge difference between Good Reform and Buchanan Reform," he said.

Victor Good, the Reform Party Congressional candidate for the 3rd Congressional District, is quick to point out his allegiance to Ross Perot and his disdain for Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party’s current presidential candidate.

"Buchanan reform is very different from Good reform," he says. Good, chairman of the Reform Party’s national education committee, sided with John Hagelin in Hagelin and Buchanan’s battle over the party’s candidacy this summer.

"The fact is, he lied, he cheated, he stole — he committed out-and-out fraud," he said of Buchanan.

But despite Buchanan’s upset, Good is serious about the Reform Party and its viability as a national third party. His campaign has drawn the help of former Perot political and media strategists who hope to vault Good and Reform ideology into Congress.

Running on Reform’s populist message, Good hopes to bring power directly back to the electorate by establishing county committees to advise him on each vote that comes before the U.S. House of Representatives. He plans to tally up each of the county committee’s votes, and then vote with the majority.

"There needs to be an avenue for public input, and I think this would be very productive and get people involved in politics again," he commented.

A self-titled "entrepreneur" Good, 38, moved to Lewis from Denver in 1999. His varied background includes training as a landscape architect and small-business marketing ventures.

If elected, Good has promised to serve only three terms in Congress, and is quick to point out Scott McInnis’s broken three-term pledge. "We’ve got 600,000 people in this district, and I don’t think we’d have a hard time finding people who would be willing to serve their country."

One of Good’s top issues is campaign-finance reform. "There’s no money strings attached to my campaign. It’s just to bring it back to the people," he explained. "When Democrats and Republicans talk about campaign-finance reform, all they are really talking about is disclosure. That really doesn’t take away the bribery. The least our government can do, of all the services we expect our government to provide, is to provide us with an unbiased, fair election process that’s financed by the taxpayer."

Good believes that the influence of corporations and special-interest groups has degraded the political process by forcing Congressmen to spend 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money for their next campaign.

"The reason we are having such low voter turnout and people that just don’t care is because the reality is that once these people get in, their campaign promises mean nothing and the only people that they owe their allegiance to are the ones that can contribute the big money to their campaign or their national committees."

In addition to reforming the way campaigns are financed, Good would like the federal government to increase funding, in the form of block grants, to the state for public education. "In order for a civilized democracy to survive you have to have an educated populace," he said.

Good believes most of America’s societal ills can be solved with funding for education and preventive measures.

In addition, Good would like to see "fair trade" not "free trade," to bring back agricultural and manufacturing interests back to the U.S. He cites the high cost of gas and oil as a prime example of what can occur when the U.S. is forced to rely on foreign interests.

As a third-party candidate running against a well-entrenched incumbent, Good pointed out that he could win the race if he gets the unaffiliated voters and 10 percent of each of the two major parties. In addition, a third-party coalition among the Green, Natural Law, and Reform parties is forming in Colorado to draw attention to third parties.

"If we want change, we have to vote for change, and I don’t see any change coming from either of the two-party candidates," said Good.

Good believes if he is elected, his vote would garner a lot of attention in Congress.

"The amount of attention and respect I could wage at this district if I’m elected would be phenomenal. I would have more clout than any of the two major-party Congressman because I’m a third-party candidate, and because it would be an upset. People would say, ‘Hey something’s happening here, people are ready for change.’"