Henry Kerry Good III, June 24, 1944 (Spokane, Wash.) -
VP candidate for Magneto-hydrodynamics-Puritan Epic-Prohibition Party (Puritan Epic, Prohibition and Magnetohydrodynamics Party aka Puritan Epic - MHD and Prohibition Party aka Puritan Ethic-Prohibition-Magnetohydrodynamics Party) (1980)
Running mate with nominee: Merrill Keith Riddick (1895-1988)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
Merrill Riddick, one of Montana's more colorful perennial candidates, grew up in a political household. His father Carl was a US Congressman (R-Mont.) 1919-1923 and in 1922 lost an open-seat election for the US Senate to none other future third party Vice-presidential candidate Burton Kendall Wheeler.
The son Merrill became an early aviator and flight instructor as well as a prospector. He became interested in politics following World War II and ran for Governor of Montana a couple times as a Democrat, then switched to the Republican Party and ran for the US Senate. In 1980 made his second of three attempts for the US Presidency under a third party of his own creation called the Magneto-hydrodynamics-Puritan Epic-Prohibition Party (in 1984 he squeezed the word "Ethic" into the official name somewhere). Not a believer in accepting special interest monetary contributions, he campaigned across the nation as a passenger in a Greyhound bus and was financed by his Social Security checks.
His two main issues were fighting the corrupting influence of special interests in government and responsible, efficient development of natural resources.
His running mate in 1980 was Kerry Good of Seeley Lake. Good was a boilermaker working in Colstrip, Mont. at the time. His family lived at Lindbergh Lake. Riddick said he picked Good to be his VP after watching him repair a Xerox machine in Denver. The full ticket was announced in July 1978. Sometimes he could not quite place his Vice-Presidential choice's name, as one reporter noted Riddick fumbled around in his notebook and muttered, "the name is ... darn it ... see, I'm getting senile."
In fact, Riddick turned 85 in 1980, considerably older than eventual victor Ronald Reagan.
Good and his wife Stacy became friends with Riddick although they were not active in electioneering activities. Even though Good was in Colorado for a spell, it looks as if he was a Montana resident, which could have presented a Constitutional problem with two candidates from the same state in the event they won.
Riddick actually gained quite a bit of newspaper coverage in 1980 compared to others in his candidate league, especially in Montana. But he dismissed a lot of reporting as "man-bites-dog articles." "Instead of talking about realities," he complained, "People talk about other things" such as "sex, Gay rights, and Bigfoot." He also said President Carter was doing a wonderful job but he could do better.
Returns for the Riddick/Good write-in ticket were apparently not reported.
Election history: none
Other occupations: boilermaker, Xerox repair
Notes:
Yes! Another fellow Spokane native in these profiles!
Good appears to have supported members of the Democratic Party and progressive causes in recent years.
