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Luck played a big part in his 1990 upset. Three weeks before Election Day, the Republican ticket was swept up in allegations of sexual improprieties by gubernatorial candidate Jon Grunseth.

And Boschwitz, also Jewish, stumbled badly with a late campaign letter in which he accused Wellstone of raising his children as Christians. It infuriated many Jews and earned broad public disapproval.

Wellstone, who often talked about politics being affected by the "winds and tides," eked out a narrow victory, 50.5 percent to 47.9 percent. The day after his election, he surprisingly announced that he would serve no more than two terms, a promise he broke in 2001 when he announced that he would seek a third term after all.

After riding his well-known green bus all the way to Washington for his swearing-in in 1991, Wellstone started stomping on toes immediately and got off to a bad start in the Senate. He held a showy press conference at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, greatly offending veterans and many of his new constituents.

In his first trip to the White House, he buttonholed President George Bush for a harangue on the inadvisability of war, and Bush reportedly said afterward, "Who is this chickenshit?"

He was one of a few senators who voted against authorizing war in Iraq, and by midsummer of 1991, his approval ratings had fallen to an all-time low for a Minnesota U.S. senator.

In the late 1990s, with Vice President Al Gore the obvious favorite to succeed President Bill Clinton as the Democratic nominee, Wellstone began angling for a run himself.

He eventually dropped out of the race, citing health problems, specifically chronic back problems. Two years later, as he was opening up his third Senate campaign, Wellstone revealed that he had a form of multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the nervous system.

Along the way and especially during his early days in the Senate, Wellstone managed to irritate and anger many who came in contact with him. Aides and Capitol observers discovered that he could be thin-skinned and harsh. His flaws were functions of his virtues, some said. His passion and drive came off as self-righteousness to some.

But among those praising him Friday was former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams, a Republican who served with him for six years and often was described as his polar opposite.

"We got to know each other a little better in recent years," said Grams, who worked with Wellstone on establishing a center in Minnesota for international torture victims.

"The fellow had a set of beliefs and fought for those very hard. He did what he believed, you always knew where he stood. He had deep convictions."

From the moment he arrived in the Senate, Wellstone was a crusader for the poor, the disadvantaged, workers, struggling family farmers, the environment and human rights causes. Wellstone's was the voice of the true left.

He began what would become a yearslong effort to derail efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In 1995, after Republicans seized control of the House and Senate, he became more vocal. Using parliamentary maneuvers, he obstructed GOP efforts to loosen environmental regulations.

He voted against the Republican-backed welfare plan that President Clinton signed into law, landing him the nickname, "Senator Welfare."

But despite taking positions on the fringes, Wellstone made friends and forged bipartisan alliances. In what may be his proudest legacy, he and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., joined ranks to author legislation to require health insurance plans to provide "parity" coverage for mental illnesses. While their bill was scaled back, President Bush recently endorsed the concept, and it is seen as a pioneering step toward helping a huge segment of sick, but often ignored, Americans.

Weeks before he died, he made another defining vote. Despite facing a tough reelection and a tide of support for Bush's push to rein in Saddam Hussein, he voted against authorizing the president to take military action against Iraq.

Poll results suggest that Wellstone's vote on principle didn't set him back in the least. He was leading Republican Norm Coleman in the polls when his plane crashed.

Wellstone is survived by his sons, Paul David and Mark, and his grandchildren, Cari, Keith, Joshua, Matt, Acacia and Sidney.

-- Washington Bureau Correspondent Greg Gordon contributed to this report.