Tsongas Insists He Has Cast Off Regional Label

Spin is everything on a day like this, and Paul E. Tsongas had his all ready to go when he strolled into Logan Airport early Tuesday afternoon in casual slacks and blue work shirt.

“I’m the breakthrough kid tonight,” the former Massachusetts senator predicted to a clump of reporters.

The words were a play on Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s claim two weeks ago that when he finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, he was “the comeback kid.” Tsongas’ phrase also expressed his hope that Tuesday’s primary returns would--finally--establish him as something more than a regional candidate.

As it turned out, Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses were not the unequivocal triumph for Tsongas that some had been predicting the last few days. True, he scored the victory he sorely needed in Maryland. But with 85% of the precincts reporting, he was running behind Clinton and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. in Colorado--a state where polls had made him the front-runner.

Still, as Tsongas stopped in New York for a fund-raiser, then rumbled on to South Carolina, he insisted the results made his point: He could win outside his home soil of New England.

Earlier on Election Day, Tsongas was telling reporters he did not want to answer whether he should now be considered the Democratic front-runner. He would take up that question Tuesday night, he promised.

But as the results came in, they were no longer asking the question.

For Tsongas, the spoiler in Colorado was Brown, who had surged among the state’s Democratic voters--just as he had nearly stolen the Maine caucus win from Tsongas on Feb. 23.

Tsongas said he gave Brown full credit. “I think Jerry Brown’s performance in Colorado is impressive,” he said.

Mostly, though, Tsongas stressed the importance of his victory in Maryland. “Now we can go on and be the kind of national candidate we always thought we were,” he said.