From our great governor, one of the three leaders of the outrage campaign against the Wellstones, we get this threat in this morning's St Paul paper:

How would you like to be United States senator for a fortnight?

That is the challenge Gov. Jesse Ventura has issued to nonpolitical "John Q. Citizen'' Minnesotans, and they are responding. Ventura's staff has received hundreds of calls, emails and applications from people promoting themselves or someone they admire as a temporary replacement for the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone.

"Applications are coming in, plus I have a few people in mind,'' Ventura said Thursday. "Saturday night, I was at a party where I ran into an old friend who's a garbage man, and he said he might want to do it. And I thought it was kind of appropriate. A garbage man certainly can spot garbage when they see it.''

Ventura, as always, is partly joking and partly serious. Joking, probably, about the idea of sending a refuse hauler to replace Wellstone, if only briefly. Serious about his reasons for abandoning his commitment to naming a member of Wellstone's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

"I felt very used and abused at that thing,'' Ventura said Thursday, referring to Tuesday night's memorial service for Wellstone. Ventura felt it became overly political and mean-spirited. "I'll return the favor now. Always remember, we SEALs, we don't get mad — we get even.''