Hat tip to Ryan Schuilling on my former radio home KHOW who has done a lot of work interviewing and researching not just Victor Marx but all the candidates for governor of Colorado, and who pointed me in the direction of looking into the campaign finance data I’ll share below.
There's been a lot of conversation on Denver talk radio about, and sometimes with, Victor Marx who is seeking the Republican nomination to be governor...and could well get it.
I've mostly stayed out of the debate partly because I find party politics to be a form of brain damage. But I have some thoughts and information I'd like to share; you can do with it what you will.
First, the positives I'll say about Victor:
- He's a charismatic and interesting guy and if even a modest fraction of his stories is true it surely makes for an interesting life
- I can't go into detail but regarding one of the things that he said he did to help a non-profit in another country, that non-profit confirmed to me directly that Victor did indeed do so. (It wasn't about rescuing kids but rather about protecting people from dangerous local threats.)
Nevertheless, I have serious concerns which, for now, I will lay out in no particular order and without much elaboration, but saving my biggest concern for last:
- It's unacceptable for a serious candidate for an important office to persistently refuse to debate and makes one wonder whether he's hiding "skeletons in the closet" or a lack of grasp of issues. I say that understanding that it's not uncommon for a candidate who believes himself to be in the lead to choose not to take an unnecessary risk of a bad moment in a debate.
- In a recent interview with radio host Peter Boyles (which I will embed below even though it's on a competing radio station), Victor says, "I have never said, ever, or it's never been put in writing that I said, that I rescued 45,000 people." (Start at 29:57 in the video to see this specific part of the conversation.) But if you look at his own campaign web page's metadata (what's embedded in a webpage for search purposes and only sometimes visible, such as in a search result before you click on it), it says Victor "has rescued more than 45,000 women & children."
- Additionally, his debate over what "save" means reminds me of a Clintonesque "it depends what the definition of 'is' is."
- The story about committing murder as a child is perhaps not impossible but sure seems unlikely. Cori Kennedy has done a lot of work on this and other questions digging into the purported backstory of Victor Marx. Mandy had an interesting conversation with Cori which you can find here: (20+) Mandy Connell - Cori Kennedy has dismantled Victor Marx's... | Facebook (and I may invite Cori to my show.)
- The conversation between Victor and Peter about martial arts was fascinating even though I don't know anything about martial arts. It seems to non-expert me that Marx, who I'm sure is a really good fighter, is nevertheless embellishing on this stuff. (A friend of mine who is an accomplished fighter listened to that section of the interview and said found Victor's claims "embarrassing.") Why lie/embellish when the truth will do? Again, I'm sure he's a strong fighter who could beat plenty of folks in a bout or a street fight. When pushed aggressively on how he got "black belts" that don't actually exist, he pivoted to say that they were in a martial arts system invented by his dad. Weird.
- Additionally, Victor repeatedly acted as if he knew people but then didn't know details about them. Again, weird.
- He basically dodged every question Peter asked. Very smooth, but very obvious to anyone who was watching with an open mind, as I was.
But here's my biggest concern
If you look at the state database of contributions to Victor Marx's campaign, there are many (I didn't count how many) instances of one person making multiple contributions. That in itself is no problem at all; it's quite common for people who support a candidate to donate money over time for a variety of reasons. But here's the problem: the information about many of those folks in the list of Victor's contributors looks more than suspicious. By which I mean: One name will show up with multiple donations showing the donor to be living in different cities, even different states, and often showing different employment status or employer. And very strangely, even when in different cities the street address is the same, so that there are frequent examples of listed addresses that don't exist.
I'll use a fictitious example because I don't want to involve a real person's name here.
Imagine that a man named Englebert Hohenpfeffer lives at 123 Horsefeathers Lane (an unusual street name you'll admit) in Alamosa, Colorado, works for Acme Shipbuilding, and donated $100 to Victor Marx's campaign.
In addition to that showing up with that information on one line in the database, a search for the name then shows one (and usually more like 3 or 5) additional donations to Victor Marx, but will show 123 Horsefeathers Lane in Centennial, and another in Denver, and another in Wichita, and another in Palm Springs...and there is no such address in any of those cities. And the employer information on those lines ranges from retired to accountant to security guard...basically random information. This is more than strange and suggests to me, a non-expert, either A) someone secretly donating illegally large amounts of money to Victor and the campaign trying to hide it, or B) someone whose name the campaign or the donor himself don't want associated with the campaign trying to hide the money, or C) the campaign not actually raising as much money as they've claimed, or D) some honest error that a competent campaign would have found and corrected long ago.
As a sort of control, I looked at the database for contributions to Scott Bottoms, another Republican running for the same office, and there are plenty of folks who have contributed more than once. Every example I examined had the person's address and employer the same in each line of the database, as one would expect.
Furthermore, I did a little additional investigation on this.
I contacted a person who is listed has having donated repeatedly to Scott Bottoms and she said she had in fact done so. I was not surprised because her name and location and employment information was consistent across donations. (This conversation was by email.)
I contacted a person who is listed as having donated repeatedly to Victor Marx and she said she had NOT done so. (This conversation was by phone.) In fact, after assuaging her suspicion about the phone call to begin with -- and it sure would be a strange call to get from someone you don't know, asking about campaign contributions -- I guided her through how to look herself up on the relevant state system (called TRACER) and she was flabbergasted to see herself (she lives in Colorado) listed as having donated from multiple CO locations but also from multiple other states. She asked me to get back in touch with her if I learn more about what's going on.
I will say it plainly: I suspect campaign finance fraud. This is not the same as saying that I suspect the candidate himself knows about it, if there are shenanigans going on. Perhaps there is a campaign finance manager doing weird things. Perhaps I'm just wrong and misunderstanding the data or perhaps someone in the campaign made a data input mistake. But if it is a mistake, it's a darn big one and one you would have thought would be corrected.
But wait, there's more: as Mandy Connell noted in her Wednesday show, the expenditure side of Victor's campaign data is also odd, with surprisingly large amounts being spent on security (I wonder if he's funneling campaign money to his friends. After all, for a guy with 3 black belts, why is so much security needed? And plenty of spending on consulting (including, apparently, paying his daughter.)
It's starting to feel a lot like Griftmas
There are a lot of good people who support Victor Marx, who find him a breath of fresh air versus the sometimes disappointing "establishment". I get it. But I'm stating here publicly that to me something seems "off", and there are too many parts of his story and his behavior that lead me to worry that he's a very flawed candidate who will get utterly destroyed by opposition research from Democrats and the local news media (if I may repeat myself.) To be clear, no Republican has more than a 5% chance of winning the governor's race this year. Actually, I think 5% is too high. But perhaps in a couple of swing districts, a Republican could pull out a win for a state legislative seat or some other local/municipal seat if the Republicans have a sane and mostly untainted candidate at the top of the ticket.
If I can find this stuff, you can bet that the Dems and Denver's big local TV news groups have already found it. They're just waiting until after the primary and, if Victor Marx (which may not even be his real name...inquiring minds want to know) wins, they'll dump bucket after bucket of political sludge on his head until he and every other Republican drown in it.
If you have been supporting and donating to Victor Marx, I encourage you to come up with just one question you have that might gently test him in any way you think relevant and contact the campaign and politely ask the question. Keep an open mind. My suspicions might be wrong. But especially if you're thinking of writing a check or casting a vote, you owe it to yourself to be confident in your choice.
I do not know that Victor Marx or his campaign has done anything wrong, but my gut instinct is that something just isn't right here.
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This is one of many similar database results. It's someone who donated (probably at least once for real) to Victor Marx. Six donations from the same person showing four different cities of residence including one outside Colorado. The employment information of the donor (accessed by clicking "View" on the TRACER page, but not here in my clipped image) shows variously "homemaker", "retired", and that she works for a tire company. Like I said, something just doesn't seem right.