Paul Tsongas | |
|---|---|
_(HQ).jpg) Official portrait,c. 1979 | |
| United States Senator fromMassachusetts | |
| In office January 3, 1979 – January 2, 1985 | |
| Preceded by | Edward Brooke |
| Succeeded by | John Kerry |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's5th district | |
| In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1979 | |
| Preceded by | Paul W. Cronin |
| Succeeded by | James Shannon |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Paul Efthemios Tsongas (1941-02-14)February 14, 1941 Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | January 18, 1997(1997-01-18) (aged 55) Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Resting place | Lowell Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | Dartmouth College (BA) Yale University (JD) Harvard University (MPP) |
Paul Efthemios Tsongas (/ˈsɒŋɡəs/SONG-gəs; February 14, 1941 – January 18, 1997) was an American politician who representedMassachusetts in theUnited States Senate from 1979 until 1985 and in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1975 until 1979. A member of theDemocratic Party, he ran for president in1992. He won eight contests during thepresidential primaries but ultimately lost the nomination toBill Clinton, who later won the general election.
Born inLowell, Massachusetts, Tsongas graduated fromDartmouth College,Yale Law School and theKennedy School of Government. After working for thePeace Corps and as an aide to CongressmanF. Bradford Morse, Tsongas successively won election as a city councilor and county commissioner. In 1974, Tsongas was elected to the House of Representatives representingMassachusetts's 5th congressional district, after defeating incumbentPaul W. Cronin. In1978, he ran for the Senate, and defeated incumbentRepublicanEdward Brooke.
In Congress, Tsongas established a reputation as a social liberal and fiscal conservative. Tsongas was diagnosed withnon-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 ofdeficit spending, Tsongas co-founded theConcord Coalition. He died in 1997 of complications from pneumonia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Tsongas was born inLowell, Massachusetts,[1] along with a twin sister, Thaleia, to a once working-class family who came to own a very successful dry cleaning business in Lowell. His father, Efthemios George Tsongas, was aGreek immigrant, and his mother, Katina (née Pappas; originally Panagiotopoulos), was of Greek descent.[2]
After graduating fromLowell High School in 1958, Tsongas attendedDartmouth College, graduating in 1962 with a B.A. in economics, thenYale Law School and theJohn F. Kennedy School of Government atHarvard University before settling inLowell, Massachusetts. While at Dartmouth, Tsongas was a member of the men's swimming team. He picked up the sport again, 27 years later, in 1986, after doctors suggested swimming as a way to rebuild his lung capacity while he was recovering from lymphoma. At a YMCA Masters meet, Tsongas once remarked, "I always used to say breaststroke was an athletic event and the butterfly was the political statement."[3]
Tsongas served as aPeace Corps volunteer inEthiopia from 1962 to 1964,[4] and as Peace Corps Country Director in theWest Indies from 1967 to 1968. In 1967, Tsongas – working as an aide to CongressmanF. Bradford Morse – metNiki Sauvage, who was spending the summer inArlington, Virginia. They were married in 1969, and had three daughters: Ashley, Katina, and Molly.Niki Tsongas was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 2007 to 2019. When Tsongas ran for office, out of concern that people would pronounce the silent T in his last name, the campaign distributedbumper stickers saying "Tsenator Tsongas".
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Tsongas first entered politics as acity councilor, elected to the Lowell City Council in 1969 where he served two consecutive terms. Tsongas went on to serve as a county commissioner ofMiddlesex County, Massachusetts. In 1974, he ran forUnited 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 RepublicanPaul 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, in1978 he ran for and was elected to theUnited States Senate, defeating incumbent RepublicanEdward Brooke by 202,699 votes.
In 1983, Tsongas was diagnosed withnon-Hodgkin's lymphoma,[5] and in 1984 announced his retirement from the Senate. His seat went to a fellow Democrat, 2004 presidential nominee and futureUnited 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,[6] he returned to politics, running for his party's nomination forPresident in1992. 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 andChris Dodd were the first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In October 1979, after theSenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted in favor ofAlaska public lands legislation, PresidentJimmy Carter issued a statement thanking Tsongas for his leadership in strengthening the bill.[7] In May 1982, Tsongas was one of eight senators to vote against a $177.9 billion military authorization bill for 1983 that provided money forchemical weapons.[8] In July 1982, Tsongas met withPrime Minister of IsraelMenachem Begin, questioning Begin over where negotiations would fit in the event thatChairman of the Palestine Liberation OrganizationYasser Arafat concedeIsrael'sright to exist along with reneging thePalestinian National Covenant over calls for Israel's abolition and replacement by a secular state. Tsongas afterward stated the meetings were distressing.[9]
During a May 27, 1983, hearing on the legal effects of theEqual Rights Amendment, the first in over a decade on the amendment, Tsongas was questioned by Utah SenatorOrrin Hatch over the measure, being described byThe New York Times as "visibly shaken by the treatment Senator Hatch gave him". Tsongas delivered an opening statement and replied "That issue will be decided in the courts" in response to most questions by Hatch.[10]
Tsongas was generally viewed associally liberal andfiscally conservative.[11][12][13] He was especially known for his efforts in Congress in support ofhistoric preservation andenvironmental conservation on one hand, and for his pro-business economic policies on the other.[citation needed] He played a major role while in the House in the creation ofLowell National Historical Park, as well as in the establishment or expansion of a number of otherNational Park System areas.
Tsongas played an equally key role later in the Senate, working closely with then Interior SecretaryCecil Andrus, in successful passage of the massiveAlaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, which had been hopelessly deadlocked in the Senate since its original passage by the House in 1978.[citation needed] Relative to business and economic matters, Tsongas focused in particular on thefederal budget deficit, a cause he continued to champion even after his presidential primary campaign ended, by co-founding theConcord Coalition.
Tsongas was criticized on occasion by opponents as aReaganomics-style politician, and as being closer to Republicans with regard to such issues. TheBoston Herald editorialized that his political philosophy had "far more in common" with 1990s-eraRepublicanMitt Romney (who crossed over to vote for Tsongas in the1992 primaries) than with traditionalMassachusetts Democrats likeTed Kennedy.[14] In the mid-1980s, he upset many of the members of theAmericans for Democratic Action by advising 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."[15]
Described as a "long shot campaign" by theNew York Times, Paul Tsongas was the first Democrat to launch a bid for the1992 presidential election, on April 30, 1991 in his hometown ofLowell, Massachusetts.[16] The Tsongas campaign was banking heavily on early success inNew Hampshire. Like many of the candidates, Tsongas ignored the 1992contest in Iowa, which was expected to go overwhelmingly to Iowa's SenatorTom Harkin. Tsongas hoped that hisNew England independence andfiscal conservatism from neighboring Massachusetts would appeal to Granite Staters. He achieved recognition for the bluntness and clarity of his plan, distributing a short book titledA Call to Economic Arms,[17] which focused on such issues as the growingfederal deficit. When asked why he did not have a tax cut plan like the other candidates, Tsongas famously answered, "I'm not trying to playSanta Claus."[18]
During the early weeks of 1992 things seemed to be going Tsongas's way when one major candidate,Bill Clinton, stumbled over issues involvingmarital infidelity and avoidance of themilitary draft during theVietnam War. But Clinton's setback proved temporary, bottoming out weeks before the New Hampshire primary so that while Tsongas won the most votes, and was declared the winner, the margin of 33.2% to 24.78% gave each candidate 9 delegates.[citation needed] Clinton adviserJames Carville then tagged his man "the Comeback Kid" and declared his campaign back on track, leaving Tsongas, still ostensibly thefront-runner, to be seen by many as the underdog heading into Super Tuesday.
FollowingNew Hampshire, Tsongas was unable to match Clinton'sfundraising. Clinton went on to win most of theSuper Tuesday delegate contests. Tsongas won the primaries inDelaware,Maryland,Arizona,Washington,Utah andMassachusetts, but his campaign never recovered from Clinton's comeback.
Tsongas pulled out of the race on March 19, 1992, and endorsed Clinton.[19][20] However, a number of the Tsongas delegates continued to support the former Senator, and voted for Tsongas on the first ballot at theConvention. The roll call yielded 289 votes for Tsongas, placing him in 3rd place behind Clinton and then-formerCalifornia Governor,Jerry Brown. During the convention Tsongas tried to include a platform plank calling for a delay intax cuts ortax credits until thebudget could be balanced, which was overwhelmingly defeated.[21]
On October 13, 1993, Tsongas's friend and fund raiser Nicholas Rizzo pleaded guilty to charges of embezzling more than $1 million from the Tsongas presidential campaign. Prosecutors claimed that the embezzlement caused the campaign to stall at a critical point.[22]
In late 1994, Tsongas briefly led an effort to establish a third party, to be led by someone with "national authority", suggesting GeneralColin Powell for that role.[23] By that time, Tsongas was considered "the most popular political figure in Massachusetts".[14]
Tsongas died on January 18, 1997, aged 55, of complications from pneumonia andnon-Hodgkin lymphoma.[24] His funeral was held at Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church.[25][26] His obituary in theNew York Times of January 20, 1997 states:
Mr. Tsongas, who was hospitalized on Jan. 3 with a liver problem related to his treatments for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a slow-growing cancer of thelymph system, and later developed pneumonia, died at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Mr. Tsongas made his survival from cancer an issue in his Presidential campaign when he and two of his doctors, Dr. Tak Takvorian and Dr. George P. Canellos, said he had been cancer-free since a bone-marrow transplant in 1986. In May 1996, he underwent another transplant, getting bone marrow from his twin sister, Thaleia Schlesinger, to correctmyelodysplasia, a bone-marrow disorder that can occur in people who have recovered from lymph cancer.
On January 27, 1998, theTsongas Center inLowell was dedicated in his honor.[27] In aspecial election held on October 16, 2007, his widow,Niki, won theMassachusetts Congressional seat that Tsongas once held.[28] Preservation Massachusetts, a statewide nonprofit focused on preservingMassachusetts history, has an annual Paul Tsongas Award to honor restoration workers in the state.[29]
Massachusetts 5th district, 1974[30]
Massachusetts 5th district, 1976[31]
1978 Massachusetts United States Senate Democratic primary[32]
1978 Massachusetts United States Senate election[33]
1992 United States Democratic presidential primaries
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's 5th congressional district 1975–1979 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromMassachusetts (Class 2) 1978 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Response to the State of the Union address 1983 Served alongside:Les AuCoin,Joe Biden,Bill Bradley,Robert Byrd,Tom Daschle,Bill Hefner,Barbara Kennelly,George Miller,Tip O'Neill,Paul Simon,Tim Wirth | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Massachusetts 1979–1985 Served alongside:Ted Kennedy | Succeeded by |
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| Class 2 | ||
| International | |
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