Unfortunately, if anything is certain in international relations, it is the fact that the subtleties of one?s own decision-making process are rarely understood by others?sometimes including even close friends and allies. Al-Qaeda made a profound miscalculation along these lines in concluding from the American withdrawal from Somalia that the U.S. was incapable of serious military intervention abroad. Hostile regimes (including Pyongyang) may similarly view excessively delicate handling of North Korea as a sign of American weakness when confronted by nuclear weapons.

U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, the fiery Democratic populist who was known for his impassioned work on behalf of the underdog, died Friday morning when his plane crashed in woods on Minnesota's Iron Range. [emphasis mine]

Wellstone may have sat at the far end of the political spectrum, but it was difficult to dislike him on a personal level ? even Right-wingers must admit that he would have made a good neighbor. Smiles and laughs came easily to him. His personal life, in fact, seemed quite conservative: He married young, had a few kids, and remained married to his wife, who was also on board the fatal flight, for 29 years. He could be feisty, but was rarely rude; even in Washington, there was still something of the college professor about him, acquired over the 21 years he spent teaching political science at Carleton College. When many Democrats talk about, say, extending unemployment benefits, their fists pound podiums, their ears billow smoke, and their faces turn red with rage. Not Wellstone. He spoke in measured tones, as if believing reasonable people will agree with him if they just listen long enough. He was an opponent of conservatism, but he was a decent man.

Betting on the prize was suspended well ahead of Tuesday night's event after a "dummy" web page was put online, which revealed the winner as Martel.

Organisers of the prize said this had been an internal mistake and denied the winner was already known, explaining the judges would not make their final decision until the day of the ceremony.

And the judges maintained their final decision was only made at 1830 BST on Tuesday night.

We have researched the options you stated and found that it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner that you requested. However, we remain open and ready to talk to you about the options you have mentioned.

That brings us back to why this is more important than the winner of the governor's race. The Nov. 5 winner faces a staggering budget deficit, one far worse than the campaign has suggested. The candidates haven't spoken clearly about what they will do to balance the budget, for obvious reasons; their proposals would be too scary for the campaign.

As a result, though, the winner won't have won a mandate to take the tough steps required to solve the problem.

It will take uncommon leadership to put the true scale of the deficit on the table, to craft a plan to balance the budget and to win legislative support for it. The scope of any budget fix will, by necessity, be so broad that only a consensus-building approach can hope to work.

Sweeping away the forces that, for so long, produced legislative gridlock will give the new governor a better chance. The change in legislative leadership will thus have a bigger impact on what can get done than anything the gubernatorial candidates have debated.

But that will require a starkly different kind of gubernatorial leadership than was the case before. And with just two weeks to go in an election campaign, it injects a critical new question in the campaign: Which candidate is best suited to become the new kind of governor that job will require?