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Text File | 1992-01-19 | 8KB | 148 lines

                   Paul Efthymios Tsongas

    Former Sen Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts is 50, serious,
 brimming with ideas and eager to play David to George Bush's
 Goliath. For months, he was the only Democrat in America to
 announce his readiness for the challenge.
    He has been called the "Bruce Babbitt of 1992," after the
 former Arizona governor who offered new ideas and challenged
 orthodoxy in 1988--but didn't make it beyond the New
 Hampshire primary. Tsongas says he's an economic Paul
 Revere.
    Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a Democratic nomination
 for Paul Tsongas is the shadow of that other Greek-American
 from Massachusetts who wanted to be president. The very
 notion that Democrats might turn to him to lead them after
 the Michael Dukakis performance is, as Tsongas himself put
 it, "fodder for Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live."
    But Tsongas has been surprising the experts since he
 first ran for a House seat that the GOP had held for more
 than a century--and won. After winning a 2d term, he took on
 another daunting challenge, running for the Senate against
 its only black member, Edward Brooke--and winning again.
    Tsongas' public life appeared to have ended in 1984 when
 he was diagnosed with cancer. He left the Senate. But he
 appears to have beaten cancer, too. After an experimental
 bone marrow transplant, his doctor says there has been no
 further sign of cancer.
    Tsongas says surviving cancer made him feel an ever
 greater sense of obligation to public service. That, he
 says, is typical of his whole life, a compulsion to serve
 driven by personal experiences.
    Tsongas grew up in a Republican household; his father ran
 a dry-cleaning business. He went to Dartmouth, where he
 switched his major from chemistry to political science.
 After graduating in 1962, he joined the fledgling Peace
 Corps and served 2 years in an Ethiopian village, where, as
 a 9th grade teacher, he helped build a dormitory.
    For the first time in his life, Tsongas says, he felt
 self-esteem for doing something useful to others. He
 returned home a Democrat. He already had his eye on a seat
 in the House, but first he obtained his law degree from Yale
 University. He had no military service.
    Tsongas has been out of office for 7 years, practicing
 law and being involved in local and state school politics.
    He made his decision to run for president, as he said on
 PBS' McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, because "I know what the
 country has to do, and I don't hear anyone else saying it."
    He also says: "I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't
 convinced that I know better than other people what we ought
 to do."
    Massachusetts supporters--and he remains popular there--
 speak of him as "sincere," "unpretentious" and "candid."
 Others see him as "hokey," "smug" or "arrogant."
    Tsongas was born in Lowell, Mass, on Feb 14, 1941. His
 wife, Nicola (Nikki) is also an attorney. They have 3
 daughters, Ashley, 17; Katina, 13; and Molly, 9. A seemingly
 shy man with an easy, often self-deprecating sense of humor,
 he's said to be "limp" on the podium, slurring or swallowing
 his words, but never angry.
    If nothing else, however, he is driven. At Dartmouth, he
 was determined to become a swimmer and earned a letter his
 senior year. He draws on that experience to sum up his
 presidential hopes. "I guess that's where I'm comfortable,"
 he says. "Starting way back doesn't bother me."

                       Tsongas' Program

    Tsongas sees America as a nation in serious economic
 decline. To reverse that trend, he says, "Both parties are
 going to have to abandon the rusty core elements of their
 economic philosophies."
    Republicans, he says, have to jettison their "slavish
 adherence" to free market ideology, which he says rules out
 a role for government as a partner with private business.
    Tsongas believes George Bush is so trapped by his own
 popularity that he dares not even acknowledge the problem--
 and is therefore unable to come up with solutions.
     Tsongas talks of "Shazaam Democrats" who, he says, look
 at the economy like an ATM machine: You push a button and
 money pours out. They fail to realize, he says, that someone
 has to be putting the money into the machine.
    Now, he says, there is no more pie to divide. To create a
 larger pie, Democrats have to give up their
 anti-business, class-warfare rhetoric and become
 pro-business liberals like himself.
     "You cannot redistribute wealth you never created, and
 if you're pro-jobs you'd better be pro-business because
 that's where the jobs are," he declares.
    Tsongas makes a vast array of specific proposals, many of
 which would be anathema to a traditional Democrat:
    * A cut in the capital gains tax on long-term investment.
    * A research and development tax credit.
    * Looser antitrust laws to permit joint ventures by
      businesses in the same industry.
    * A national energy policy that includes higher taxes on
      gasoline and greater reliance on nuclear energy as part
      of an environmental policy that tackles global warming.
    Tsongas' main pitch is that American business is in deep
 trouble and there is no leadership offering a hand.
    Japan and Germany are able to trash American companies
 with impunity because their governments have an industrial
 policy, and they offer coordination and support.
    "American companies need the US government as a full
 partner if they are to have any hope of competing
 internationally," he says.
    Giving such support to business is a true liberal policy
 because it fosters the creation of new jobs and leads to
 that bigger pie of benefit to all, Tsongas maintains.
    Tsongas calls on Democrats to return to "the values of
 our ancestors." Today's generation, he says, must accept its
 responsibility to future generations and not leave them
 saddled with debt and a poisoned environment.

                     The Tsongas Campaign

    As an unknown challenger, Tsongas takes a predictable
 approach: he campaigns as an "outsider" running against
 Washington insiders.
    "Enough of Washington mediocrity," he declares in one
 speech. In another, he attacks the "Beltway mentality"--
  saying that those inside the Washington Beltway have lost
 contact with the problems the rest of America faces.
    It's a campaign that plays on the restlessness among
 voters fed up with "politics as usual"--which showed up in
 the 1990 election.
    If money is the measure of a successful campaign, Tsongas
 says his campaign has passed its first milestone with flying
 colors: It has raised enough money to qualify for matching
 contributions from the Federal Election Fund.
    To do so, he had to raise $5,000 in each of 20 states
 from individual contributions of not more than $250 each.
    His states included California, New York, New Hampshire
 (where the first primary will be held) and 5 southern
 states. He also received contributions from Washington, DC.
    Tsongas said his campaign raised $500,000 in the first
 half of 1991.
    Even if many other Democrats try for the nomination,
 Tsongas says he will still stand out in the crowd.
    "I am not running to be president," he says. "I'm running
 to spread this message. I must not do what Democrats usually
 do and bend to special interests. I am the message. If I
 bend, I have no message."
    Some of his potential rivals say the message is skewed.
 Instead of tax breaks for the rich, they say--using the
 argument raised against George Bush--why not some for the
 middle class?
    Tsongas admits his message won't be an easy sell.