‘Very Grateful’ Tsongas Is Taking Time to Think

Paul E. Tsongas, who exited the Democratic presidential race three weeks ago, said Tuesday night that he will delay a decision on whether to re-enter the contest so he can make a careful analysis of his strong showing in Tuesday’s primaries.

Speaking to reporters from the porch of his Lowell, Mass., home, the former Massachusetts senator said he was “very grateful” for his vote totals, including second-place finishes in New York and Kansas. But he said he wanted to analyze what the results suggest about Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s campaign and might wait as late as Friday before making an announcement.

Although Tsongas left the campaign complaining he had run out of money, now “money isn’t the issue” he said, adding, “We know how we did. The question is how Bill Clinton did.”

He said people close to him had asked him not to make a quick decision Tuesday or today, but to wait until Thursday or Friday. He said he would do that.

“I have obviously to do something that is deliberative, that is well thought out,” he said.

Tsongas also insisted he did not intend to play the role of “spoiler,” to rejoin the race only to block Clinton’s advance.

Earlier Tuesday, Tsongas’ wife, Niki, said she thought the prospect of her husband re-entering the race was “highly unlikely.”

Barry White, Tsongas’ campaign chairman and the senior partner in his law firm, agreed. But he said Tsongas’ showing in the high 20% range in New York as a non-campaigning candidate was “unparalleled.”

“No one can ever recall an instance of such a thing happening,” White said.

He said that if Tsongas does re-enter the race, it will be with a smaller and far less expensive campaign organization that would not sharply increase the campaign’s $500,000 debt.

“We would just try to get the message out,” White said.

Tsongas would also try to stick to his principal theme of a national economic revival and avoid attacks on other candidates, such as those he leveled at Clinton before the Florida and Texas primaries March 10.

“We went negative, and it hurt us,” White said. “We won’t do that again.”

He added: “And maybe Clinton doesn’t need any more roughing up.”

White said he believed that Tsongas might be able to win the nomination even though the arithmetic of the primary strongly favors Clinton, who now has more than half the delegates he needs for a first-ballot victory. “If the party wants a certain candidate, then maybe something can happen.”

Appearing earlier Tuesday before the American Business Conference, Tsongas said that while businesses had given little to his campaign, many business people have told him they wished they had given more.

Such pledges might sustain the campaign through the primary season, White said.

But a former Tsongas campaign volunteer said Tsongas will need to be careful not to overestimate how well he could do if he got back in.

Mark Bisnow, who campaigned with Tsongas and was press secretary to 1980 independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson, said votes for Tsongas were cast in many cases as a protest against the other candidates. Tsongas also did well because as a sideline candidate he was not hurt by campaign attacks.

And his departure brought heavy praise from all sides that could rapidly dissipate if the former senator joined the fray, he said.

“It’s bound to look different when he’s in there with them,” Bisnow said.