Paul Schmelzer as signed by Sen. Paul Wellstone

My first year in college, fresh from small-town Wisconsin, I found myself in the audience as a squatty gesticulating guy, a former wrestler and college professor, spoke excitedly on stage about single-payer healthcare, a radical idea that turned out to be ten or more years before its time. On his way to becoming one of Minnesota's most beloved senators, Paul Wellstone became quite familiar with the role of being an early and independent voice on many issues: he opposed both Iraq wars and accurately predicted the outcomes we're now facing in Iraq. But he truly was a representative, stepping up to speak on behalf of groups including immigrants, farmers and veterans. While conservatives derided him as ultra-left, he famously--and accurately, as I see it--said he represented the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

When he died in a plane crash days before the 2002 election, an already scheduled anti-war rally turned into a 10,000-person strong moving memorial. I was there, amid nuns and Hmong leaders, Veterans for Peace marchers and farm workers, Somali activists and baby boomers.

Understand the depth of the grief on the street that day and you'll understand why, even now, you can find the senator's name spelled out on that iconic green background followed by an optimistic exclamation on more than a few bumperstickers and yard signs across Minnesota:

Wellstone!

At the time I wrote him asking for his signature, I wasn't quite as enamored. The memory of him signing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 was still fresh (in his memoir, he said that's the one vote he regretted). But then he died, pro-war Republican Norm Coleman was elected to his seat, and a siege on Baghdad followed. And here we are.

Unlike the other signatures in this project, which are stacked together in a special box, Wellstone's autograph, and the simple post-it that accompanied it--a jotted "Good luck"--reside in a plastic sleeve, protected like some kind of relic. With so few politicians to admire the way I did Paul Wellstone, maybe that's what they are.