The year was 1904, the gubernatorial elections were heating up. The incumbent govenor, James H. Peabody was losing popularity because of his hard line with the mine workers. The Democratic Party selected Alva Adams to be their candidate, he had been govenor twice before, from 1887-1889 and again from 1897-1899. The Democratic slogan was "Anybody but Peabody". The Democrats contended that Peabody had mismanaged the mining strikes, and Adams could do better, as he had already proven in earlier administrations.
The election was the most corrupt in the history of Colorado, and quite possibly the rest of the nation. There were reports of ballot stuffing, one district posted 717 ballots with only 100 registered voters in residence. The corruption ran deep on both sides, the Republicans accused the Democrats, although, one Republican officer of the Denver Union Water Company publicly boasted, "We rule...the people have nothing to do with nominations and elections. We rule and we're going to continue to rule."* The Republican mine owners threatened to fire anyone who didn't vote Republican. Dispite the strong-arm tactics of the Republican party, the Democrats won the day. Their victory was short lived however, as the Republican Legislature forced Governor Adams to step down due to the improprieties of the election. The Democrats likewise forced Governor Peabody to resign in favor of his Republican Lieutenant Governor Jesse F. McDonald. Thus in the span of one day, Colorado had three different governors.
That is what the Kine know about the subject. What they didn't see was the Kindred struggle for supremcy of the city. Robert Pointe had always supported Governor Peabody's hard line stance with the mine workers, however, recently as the governor's favor with the public was flagging, he had withdrawn his support and was casting about for another candidate.
In the vacuum that he left, Victor Carmichael, a Brujah, stepped up. Carmichael had decided that he could take control of the city away from Pointe, at the same time Lord Rhyer had his hands full with Sebastian Shadwell, an up and coming young Tremere Regent who had decided that it was time for the Tremere to hold a city in the United States like they did in Europe. These two had independently declared Praxis on Robert Pointe. Pointe finally got the two of them to agree that whoever won the gubernatoral election would be prince. This stopped much of the violence that was breaking out all over the state.
While Pointe was widely disliked for his bigoted and racist politics, no one could overlook the fact that he had a way of being able to size people up quickly and exploit their weaknesses. He knew that Rhyer would never stand for Shadwell becoming prince, he also knew that the thugs that Carmichael had hired would never be subtle enough to pull off a fraudulent election.
The three of them stayed up all through two nights and a day haggling over who was going to do what and when the sun set the next day, Denver had had three governors and three princes. Originally, Carmichael was prince, but was outmaneuvered when it was shown that he lacked the clout to defend his champion for governor. This left Shadwell to take the office, but Lord Rhyer pulled rank and packed him off to Vienna that night. Pointe arranged to have Peabody relinquish the seat to McDonald, thus re-affirming his original position as prince. Carmichael left town the next night and has not been seen or heard from since; his whereabouts are unknown at this time.
*The Colorado State Archives biography of Govenor Alva Adams http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/gss/archives/govs/adams.html