The New York Times and Washington Post Eviscerate Fringe Colorado GOP Nominee Victor Marx, Who Has Left GOP “Relationships in Tatters”

The New York Times and Washington Post Eviscerate Fringe Colorado GOP Nominee Victor Marx, Who Has Left GOP “Relationships in Tatters”

New columns in The New York Times and The Washington Post dig into the absurd and extreme claims of Colorado GOP gubernatorial nominee Victor Marx, and how his nomination “has divided the Colorado right, leaving relationships in tatters.”

Victor Marx won the GOP primary last week, but has grabbed more headlines over the past day for his “extraordinary, and unverified” claims that he “killed a man when he was 7”, “can perform exorcisms by phone”, and “rescued 45,000 women and children from captivity and abuse.”

His violent and fantastical stories have Republicans across the state “despairing” and worried that “having Marx at the top of the ticket could put some statehouse and congressional races in danger.” Colorado Republicans have blasted Marx for being unfit for office and still refuse to endorse him. Marx’s primary opponent, Barbara Kirkmeyer, warned that Marx atop the ticket “could be the extinction of the Republican Party.”

New York Times: “He Says He Killed a Man. Republicans Nominated Him Anyway” 

• The right-wing preacher turned politician Victor Marx has said that he first killed a man when he was 7. He’s not sure how many deaths he’s been responsible for since. Marx has been arrested at least twice for disorderly conduct and has described terrorizing a psychiatrist with talk of murdering him. He told the Colorado journalist Kyle Clark that he can perform exorcisms by phone. On Thursday he was declared the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary in Colorado.
• Marx’s close victory in a three-way primary has some Colorado Republicans despairing. Given how blue the state has become, the G.O.P. never had much hope of winning the governorship, but Republicans told me that having Marx at the top of the ticket could put some statehouse and congressional races in danger.
• “He’s going to do absolute destruction to all the candidates down ballot,” said Darcy Schoening, a former Moms for Liberty activist and a state party delegate who runs an anti-Marx website.
• His campaign has divided the Colorado right, leaving relationships in tatters. “This election season, most people probably lost more friends than they ever have in any other cycle,” said Schoening.

Washington Post: An agonizing interview failed to end the GOP’s Marx problem

• Heading into the gubernatorial primary, Colorado Republicans had two top contenders in a crowded field. One was a widely respected state senator, Barbara Kirkmeyer. The other was Marx, an evangelical minister versed in martial arts who describes himself as “a high-risk missionary.”
• Last week, after the close June 30 election, Marx was declared the winner. This, despite a catastrophic interview in May with Kyle Clark of 9News, the NBC affiliate in Denver. Clark began with Marx’s extraordinary, and unverified, claim to have rescued 45,000 women and children from captivity and abuse. He pressed for specifics.
• Clark asked, “Your claim that your abusive stepfather forced you to kill a man when you were 7 years old — is that the only person you’ve ever killed?”
• For probably 99.999 percent of the population, that’s an easy question to answer. For an agonizing 10 seconds or so, Marx sat, thinking, and finally responded, “Well, I would say, as a, as a child, yes, I mean, without question. But I’ve been in other situations where, you know, possibly people or persons died, as a result of me defending myself and in other countries.”
• It should be noted that the Denver Post says Marx, a former Marine, “was a weapons instructor at Camp Pendleton in California and did not see combat,” so we’re not talking about a veteran declining to go into details about his service. Clark asked if the voters deserved to know if he had ever killed anyone else, and Marx simply shook his head as if the question were ridiculous: “There’s no need. I don’t think that’s important. … It’s an odd question to me.”
• Kirkmeyer has understandably been slow to throw her support behind the candidate who defeated her. In a debate during the campaign, shewarned that Marx atop the ticket “could be the extinction of the Republican Party” in Colorado. In her concession statement, Kirkmeyer, in addition to calling on voters this fall to “choose the path that is best for Colorado,” said, “And, for the record, I still haven’t killed anyone.”
• Colorado Republicans might have had an opportunity this year to be competitive again in a former swing state that is now solidly blue. At this point, with Marx as their standard bearer, salvaging the GOP’s future there would be a job for a high-risk political missionary.

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