For an indie politician of Hickenlooper's stripe, this would seem to be a propitious moment in history. "Partisanship is less popular now than probably any time since the Progressive Era," says historian and writer Michael Kazin. Partisan loyalties are waning as more voters register as independents. In Colorado, about a third of the electorate is now unaffiliated. The flood of outside money into elections has made the support of a party less important. Plus, big, wacky characters are catnip for social media. Thanks to all those factors, Kazin says, "it's much more possible to be an independent personality ... someone who seems to be a figure who doesn't just not care about the parties but who thinks the parties are getting in the way of strong leadership."

That's Hickenlooper to a T. So how did the qualities that made him golden turn so quickly to dross? Political historian and columnist Eric Alterman, of The Nation, believes that some politicians fall for "a myth that we all basically agree on the issues, and we basically need to get together and do the right thing. But you can't govern on the basis of, 'You're a good guy; he's a good guy—you'll make good decisions.' "

Even so, Hickenlooper seems hell-bent on testing that approach. Although many candidates run as outsiders pledging to shake up the system—and never, ever to become one of "them"—most accommodate themselves to the status quo soon enough, morphing into predictable partisans with prepackaged sound bites. Hickenlooper, by contrast, has governed Colorado largely the way he promised. The story of his political rise and decline speaks to something larger, then: What happens when voters elect the kind of candidate they say they want, and he proceeds to govern as they expect? Do we really like leaders who refuse to play the game, who insist on thinking—even out loud and in public—for themselves? When Coloradans go to the polls in November, they won't simply be choosing a governor. They'll be offering answers to those questions.

* * *

On an August morning two months after his disastrous encounter with the sheriffs, John Hickenlooper is telling me the secret to overcoming the partisan divide. "I learned it in the restaurant business," he says. We're sitting in a back room of the Denver Performing Arts Complex, a palatial structure the size of four city blocks, and one that Hickenlooper helped to renovate as mayor. Today it's the site of his annual Silicon Valley-style extravaganza, the Colorado Innovation Network Summit, which starts in a few minutes. Hickenlooper leans back in his chair, thin and lanky in a camel-colored suit and pale-blue shirt (as usual, no tie). "You know, in the restaurant business, one of the things you learn is that if someone's very unhappy with their situation, you repeat back to them exactly what they're saying, in their own words. So," he says, leaning forward and staring me straight in the eye to demonstrate. " 'The waiter didn't look where they were going, and they dumped the soup completely on your lap, and the soup was very hot.' As they're saying those things, you repeat back to them, and they feel, you know, somehow heard and validated. And it makes them—it makes almost everyone—not so stuck on their point of view."