EDITOR'S NOTE

When the news came, we threw out everything we'd planned for this week's issue and spent an hour or so sitting around a conference table watching the grim details accrue on TV.

We talked about people we might interview, stories we might write; we talked about our own memories and impressions of Paul Wellstone.

And in the end we decided the worthiest thing we could do was simply to find some of the many folks whose paths had crossed his during a life devoted to fighting other people's battles, and let them tell their stories.