ABSTRACT
Just over a century ago, at a time when eastern Colorado was still a part of the Kansas and Nebraska territories and tempers were short over issues of Free Soil and mining-camp government, the Rocky Mountain News took occasion to observe that a politician is a person who, "buoyant by putrefaction, rises as he rots." Time has moderated the opinion, even in the Rocky Mountain News, but the Colorado public still tends to be wary of politicians and their enthusiasms.
