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Paul Tsongas was in an acerbic mood as his campaign's new 727 charter jet streaked from San Antonio to Dallas last week. The subject was Bill Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination and advocate of a tax cut for middle-income Americans that he opposes. "I know why Bill is for it," he told NEWSWEEK. "I was in the same meetings he was, the ones in which the pollsters and the advisers told you it would sell ... I am operating from conviction. I won't say Clinton has no political convictions. Clinton is about average for the people I've seen in polities."
Call it tsanctimony. Tsongas has become the political surprise of 1992 by packaging himself as the "uncandidate," an unpolished purveyor of hard economic truths. But "Saint Paul," as some colleagues derisively call him, is steeped in the conventional politics he claims to disdain. This antipolitician is in fact a career politician: a tough-as-nails practitioner with an instinct for opportunity that helped him win four elective offices during his first nine years in public life. Tsongas's campaign mantra is that he's no Santa Claus. But he was Saint Nick during his years in the House and U.S. Senate, hauling sleighs full of federal largesse back to his native Lowell, Mass. Like most elected officials, he has profited handsomely from his political connections-with honoraria while in office and a lucrative partnership in a top Boston law firm when he returned home. But Tsongas makes no apologies for growing rich: his battle with cancer in the mid-1980s left him justifiably worried about his family's financial security.
Tsongas rankles at comparisons to Michael Dukakis, the other liberal Greek-American from Massachusetts. He needn't worry: he bears a more striking resemblance to Jimmy Carter, an equally hard-bitten blend of moral high-mindedness ("I'll never lie to you") and relentless, plodding ambition. It's no coincidence that several ex-Carter operatives, including former White House political director Tim Kraft, have signed on with Tsongas. And while he says his candidacy is a quest inspired by his recovery, he contemplated running for president as early as 1981.
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Tsongas has never hesitated to make common cause with anyone who could help him win. He learned his politics in Lowell, a gritty mill town on the Merrimack River north of Boston where Greek, Irish and French-Canadian pols scrapped for the patronage spoils at city hall. When his first city council race was floundering in 1969, the 28-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer sought out Jean Paul (Tiger) Frechette, an ex-boxer popular in the city's Franco-American wards. At their first meeting, Tsongas slipped through the back door of a social club, so that word would not get out if they failed to hit it off. But the encounter was a success and helped boost him to victory. Once in office, Tsongas was a tenacious infighter. As a freshman city councilor he assembled the votes to hire a new city manager he had handpicked. But his righteous "reform" fervor earned him enemies. By the middle of his second term, a third appeared unlikely. "He's always had an attitude that he was right, and that you'd better support him or there was something wrong with you," says Kendall Wallace, general manager of the Lowell Sun.
But Tsongas always managed to find a new perch before wearing out his welcome. In 1972, voter anger over courthouse corruption vaulted him to a seat on the Middlesex County Commission. Two years later Watergate and a shaky first-term Republican incumbent helped him win the Fifth District congressional seat. In 1978, few Democrats wanted to challenge Republican Edward Brooke, the Senate's only black member. Tsongas won the Democratic primary after a better-known opponent was injured in a car accident and lost campaign time. Brooke, plagued by financial problems and a messy divorce, was an easy mark.
While in the U.S. Senate, Tsongas teamed with another unlikely ally. City manager Joseph Tully was strictly old school: former state Senate colleagues dubbed him the "Joe Tully Employment Agency," a tribute to the patronage jobs he controlled. But beginning in 1979 he and Tsongas ushered in Lowell's urban renaissance. Tsongas was part of what locals referred to as "the delivery system," the cadre of congressional and state representatives skilled at funneling grants into the city. Tully provided the muscle at city hall. They persuaded computer pioneer An Wang to locate a training center in the city's desolate downtown. Urban Development Action Grants helped leverage private financing for a new Hilton hotel. Tsongas sang Tully's praises as a can-do administrator. "They danced together perfectly," says former state representative Phil Shea. But in 1986, when Tsongas heard rumors of corruption, he asked the U.S. attorney to investigate. The trail led to Tully, who served 14 months in prison for extorting money from a local businessman.
In his 10 years on the Hill (1974-84), Tsongas was less than the friend to the American boardroom he now claims to be. He led the effort to force union wage concessions in the Chrysler bailout but got generally low ratings from business organizations. He voted against a capital-gains tax cut in 1978, a measure now at the center of his economic program. Tsongas believes it did more to help Lowell's economic revival than any other single measure. "That was really a stupid one on my part," he says.
He was also a loner and a puzzle to some colleagues. Tsongas was among those who urged Teddy Kennedy to challenge Carter in 1980. Then, without warning, he delivered a famous speech to Americans for Democratic Action questioning the future of liberalism--a move Kennedy loyalists still view as a calculated betrayal. While Tsongas now bills himself the substance candidate, he operated on the principle that television face time counted more than content. "If [voters] are comfortable with you as a person-and TV for me was a very good medium-then they'll forgive you some of your positions," he told Hedrick Smith in the 1988 book "The Power Game." "Reagan is a classic example."
After cancer forced his retirement from the Senate in 1984 (page 26), Tsongas signed on with Foley, Hoag & Eliot, a Boston law firm. He became a "rainmaker," using his political ties to attract millions of dollars in business to the firm. His clients included the municipal-bond division of Drexel Burnham Lambert, masters of the junkbond financing he now decries on the campaign trail. His strong environmental record (he led the congressional fight to protect Alaskan wilderness from development) made him an attractive hire for companies trying to shepherd unpopular projects through the system. Tsongas helped a Connecticut company win approval for a 370-mile pipe line to bring Canadian natural gas to the Northeast, pacifying environmental groups concerned about the project's impact. Tsongas was well paid for his efforts. His 1990 partnership draw was $200,000 ($150,000 this year); corporate directorships added $125,000. His home is a spacious Victorian once owned by textile magnate Ames Stevens. Until he quit last December, he belonged to a Lowell country club that didn't admit women as full voting members until the fall of 1990.
Tsongas continued his attempts to rebuild Lowell-this time collecting fees by brokering deals through his law firm. In 1987 he persuaded Boston developer Edward Barry to convert the abandoned Boott Mills complex to offices and stores. Tsongas also continued his predilection for remaining tight with the boys. He joined Lawrence Ansin, a wealthy Lowell textile executive, and Steve Joncas, a former congressional aide, in developing an Ayer, Mass., industrial park. Tsongas put up little capital in the deal, prompting some in Lowell to conclude that Ansin was trading on Tsongas's name. "The guy has used Paul," says one former city official who knows both men. Ansin would not return phone calls. A weak economy has since eroded much of what Tsongas tried to achieve in Lowell. Boott Mills was sold in a bank auction last fall. The Wang Training Center is gone. The UDAG hotel, sold in foreclosure two years ago, is open but just hanging on. The Ayer industrial park has yet to turn a profit.
Tsongas is no entrepreneur, but his political luck carries an aura of legend around Lowell. Local politicians were not surprised when Clinton's problems with charges of draft evasion and infidelity allowed Tsongas to muscle into first place in New Hampshire. Nor are they surprised that he has tried to soften Clinton up with negative ads in the South. "He is a mean enemy," says former city manager William Taupier. "He'll come after you and try to hurt you." Dewy-eyed idealists need not apply to Tsongas's high command. Campaign manager Dennis Kanin was at Tsongas's side during his 10-year House and Senate career. Ed Jesser, a Boston consultant and the campaign's attack-dog spinmeister, is the Bay State incarnation of James Carville. Ohio strategist Gerald Austin managed Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign. High-road appeals put Tsongas into play for the nomination. He'll need his hardball instincts to stay there.
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