Tsongas was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1983 and declined to seek re-election in 1984. He returned to politics after undergoing a successful bone marrow transplant. He experienced early success in the 1992 Democratic presidential primaries, winning the New Hampshire primary, but withdrew from the race in March 1992 and endorsed Clinton. An opponent of deficit spending, Tsongas co-founded the Concord Coalition. He died in 1997 of complications from pneumonia and non-Hodgkin lymphona.
Early life
Tsongas was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, along with a twin sister, Thaleia, to a once working-class family who came to own a very successful dry cleaning business in Lowell.[1] His father, Efthemios George Tsongas, was a Greek immigrant, and his mother, Katina (née Pappas; originally Panagiotopoulos), was of Greek descent.[2]
He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1962–1964, and as Peace Corps Country Director in the West Indies from 1967–1968.
In 1967 Tsongas, working as an aide to Congressman F. Bradford Morse, met Niki Sauvage, who was spending the summer in Arlington, Virginia. They were married in 1969, and had three daughters: Ashley, Katina, and Molly. Niki Tsongas is currently a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
When Tsongas ran for office, out of concern that people would mispronounce his last name, there were bumper stickers saying "Tsenator Tsongas".
Political career
Tsongas first entered politics as a city councillor, elected to the Lowell City Council in 1969 where he served two consecutive terms. Tsongas went on to serve as a county commissioner of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1974 he ran for United States House of Representatives from a district anchored by Lowell. The district had elected only three Democrats in its entire existence and had been in Republican hands continuously since 1895. However, in the massive Democratic wave of the post-Watergate election of 1974, he defeated freshman Republican Paul W. Cronin by a 21-point margin. He was reelected in 1976, becoming the first Democrat to hold the district for more than one term. Increasingly popular and well-liked in Massachusetts, in 1978 he ran for and was elected to the Senate, defeating incumbent Republican Edward Brooke by a 10-point margin.
In 1983, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma[3] and in 1984 announced his retirement from the Senate. His seat went to fellow Democrat, 2004 presidential nominee and United States Secretary of StateJohn Kerry. After undergoing a bone marrow transplant to treat the disease in 1986 and receiving a clean bill of health from doctors in 1991,[4] he returned to politics, running for his party's nomination for President in 1992. Until the 1992 campaign, Tsongas had never lost an election. He was the first former Peace Corps volunteer elected to the U.S. Senate (1978). (In 1974, he and Christopher Dodd were the first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.)
Political positions
Tsongas was generally viewed as a social liberal and an economic moderate. He was especially known for his efforts in Congress in support of historic preservation and environmental conservation on one hand, and for his pro-business economic policies on the other. [citation needed]
Relative to business and economic matters, Tsongas focused in particular on the Federal budget deficit, a cause he continued to champion even after his presidential primary campaign ended, by co-founding the Concord Coalition.
Tsongas was criticized on occasion by opponents as a Reaganomics-style politician, and as being closer to Republicans with regard to such issues. The Boston Herald editorialized that his political philosophy had "far more in common" with 1990s-era RepublicanMitt Romney (who crossed over to vote for Tsongas in the 1992 primaries) than with traditional Massachusetts Democrats like Ted Kennedy.[5] In the mid-1980s, he shocked many of the members of the Americans for Democratic Action by telling them that they should focus more on economic growth than wealth redistribution.
He once quipped, "If anyone thinks the words 'government' and 'efficiency' belong in the same sentence, we have counselling available."[6]
Described as a "long shot campaign" by the New York Times, Paul Tsongas was the first Democrat to launch a bid for the '92 Presidency, on April 30, 1991 in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.[7] Tsongas campaign was banking heavily on early success in New Hampshire. Like many of the candidates, Tsongas ignored the 1992 contest in Iowa, which was expected to go overwhelmingly to Iowa's Senator Tom Harkin. Tsongas hoped that his New England independence and fiscal conservatism from neighboring Massachusetts would appeal to Granite Staters. He achieved recognition for the bluntness and clarity of his plan, distributing a short book titled A Call to Economic Arms,[8] which focused on such issues as the growing federal deficit. When asked why he did not have a tax cut plan like the other candidates, Tsongas famously answered, "I'm not trying to play Santa Claus."[9]
New Hampshire delegates for Tsongas on the DNC convention floor..
During the early weeks of 1992, things seemed to be going Tsongas's way when one of the potential major candidates, Bill Clinton, stumbled over issues involving marital infidelity and avoidance of the military draft during Vietnam. While Clinton was hurt by these issues, the damage seemed to bottom out several weeks before the New Hampshire primary. While Tsongas won the most votes and was declared the winner of the New Hampshire primary, the narrow victory (33.20% to 24.78%) gave each candidate 9 delegates.[citation needed] Clinton's adviser James Carville tagged Clinton with the label "the Comeback Kid" and claimed that Clinton's campaign was back on track. While ostensibly the front-runner, Tsongas was already considered by many to be the underdog to Clinton given the support the Arkansas Governor had heading into Super Tuesday.
Following the New Hampshire primary, Tsongas was unable to match Clinton's fundraising. Clinton later went on to win most of the Super Tuesday primaries. Tsongas did go on to win delegate contests in Delaware, Maryland, Arizona, Washington, Utah, and Massachusetts, but his campaign never recovered from Clinton's comeback; Clinton won the primaries of most of the more populous and delegate-rich states.
Eventually, Tsongas pulled out of the race on 19 March 1992, and endorsed Clinton.[10][11] However, a number of the Tsongas delegates continued to support the former Senator, and voted for Tsongas on the first ballot at the Convention. The roll call yielded 289 votes for Tsongas, placing him in 3rd place behind Clinton and then-former CaliforniaGovernor, Jerry Brown.
File:Tsongas vs Clinton.jpgTsongas vs Clinton TIME magazine cover
Post-senate career
In late 1994, Tsongas briefly led an effort to establish a third party, to be led by someone with "national authority", suggesting General Colin Powell for that role.[12] By that time, he was considered "the most popular political figure in Massachusetts."[5]
Preservation Massachusetts, a statewide nonprofit focused on preserving Massachusetts history, has an annual Paul Tsongas Award to honor restoration workers in the state.[16]
