Paul Tsongas has a sad, hurt look. On the podium he is a limp performer who often slurs and swallows his words. Afterward he has to brace himself for insinuating questions about another Greek politician from Massachusetts, the tattered Michael Dukakis. On top of all that, Tsongas must assure voters he has really licked the cancer that led him to retire from the U.S. Senate seven years ago. Why on earth is this man running for President?
All his political life, Tsongas, now 50, has taken people by surprise. He is an odd politician. On the surface he is almost mushy. He rarely loses his temper or even raises his voice. So it is something of a shock to discover that underneath, Tsongas (pronounced song-us) is highly opinionated and hard as nails. What you see is not what you get.
In 1978 he dared to challenge Edward Brooke, the country's only black Senator, and beat him. Two years later, he flabbergasted the ultra-liberal Americans for Democratic Action by telling the organization its brand of liberalism was dead. In 1984 he suddenly walked away from the Senate. He wanted to be home with his family while undergoing cancer treatment. Two months ago, Tsongas sprang yet another shock. Out of the blue, he became the first -- and so far only -- Democrat to declare for President. Right in character, he announced his candidacy at the height of George Bush's popularity.
His goal is to sound an emergency alarm. America is sinking into economic peril, warns Tsongas. In the new ruthless international marketplace, American products are not selling. The country's manufacturing base is shot, jobs are disappearing by the thousands, our standard of living is eroding. The result: the very fabric of America's social order is under threat. "The larger dangers are here, not in Iraq," says the candidate.
Calling himself the economic Paul Revere, Tsongas says American business must be better nurtured, workers must be better trained, companies must be urged to think of long-term development rather than quick profits. Furthermore, Tsongas charges, the Republican mania for free markets is dangerously out of date. Today foreign governments keenly nourish their own private industries. "American companies," says Tsongas, "need the U.S. government as a full partner."
Tsongas is even harder on his own party. Americans simply do not trust Democrats to run the economy, he declares. "For Democrats to insist that they are pro-jobs and also antibusiness is obsolete," the candidate repeats at every stop. His solution: Democrats must stop bashing business. Says Tsongas: "Democrats have been famous for dividing the pie fairly. Now there's no pie left. So Democrats must learn how to produce wealth." Businessmen, he tells his listeners, badly need a capital-gains-tax reduction, tax credits for new investments, the elimination of quarterly reports that encourage short- term thinking. Last winter Tsongas spent two months writing an encyclopedic, 85-page treatise that is the core of his campaign. The title of his book: A Call to Economic Arms.