Tsongas is picking up the pace amid already-intense campaign
Before stepping up on a chair to address a gathering in Acton the other night, Niki Tsongas pulled off her black heels for balance, revealing swollen feet. Her red nail polish was chipped and faded, and her toes were taped with Band-Aids.
She glanced down, first sheepishly, then with pride.
"These feet are showing the wounds of this race," said Tsongas, 61, the Democratic candidate in the Fifth Congressional District. She made her way through a quick stump speech, speaking to a crowd that had been primed by Governor Deval Patrick. It was a weeknight, but already Tsongas had addressed the Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce at a job expo in Andover, held a Q-and-A with community college students in Haverhill, shook every hand and posed for pictures at a Lawrence restaurant, and attended a fund-raiser at a Carlisle estate - all since noon.
The unrelenting schedule and swollen feet attest to Tsongas's determination not to take the race for granted after winning a five-way primary Sept. 4. As a Democrat named Tsongas, she would appear to hold all the advantages in the election next Tuesday in a district that first sent her late husband, Paul, to the House in 1974 and has elected a Democrat ever since.
Tsongas, 61, faces a Republican, Jim Ogonowski, who has relentlessly criticized her as a Washington insider while casting himself as a homespun regular guy. She knows the unusual election date means voter turnout is not guaranteed. "I've always known I've had to earn every vote," Tsongas said, riding in the back of a Saturn between events. "It's the tradition I come out of."
Or, as Patrick - one of the Democratic heavyweights, including Bill Clinton, who have helped raise her profile - put it while introducing Tsongas at a fund-raiser in Carlisle: "Nobody is giving this to us, nobody."
On the trail with her Thursday, Patrick was a ball of energy, hopping onto diner booth cushions, stopping traffic to address individual motorists, pulling Tsongas from a departing car for a quick spin through a barbershop. "Niki Tsongas," he'd say. "She needs your vote."
And Tsongas would follow, smiling steadily, shaking hands, chatting with voters. "Hi, I'm Niki Tsongas. How are you?"
On the stump, Tsongas emphasizes her connections to the district, her experience as a congressional spouse in Washington, and, above all, the differences between Democratic and Republican policy positions. Taking a script from Democrats who took control of Congress in 2006, Tsongas is calling her special-election campaign a referendum on President Bush and the Iraq war.
"There is a clear choice here, and it's my job as a candidate to make sure that people understand that," she said.
There are few unscripted moments in the Tsongas campaign. When the candidate was asked, while riding between events, what she does in her spare time, her press secretary, Katie Elbert piped up from the front seat of the Saturn, "That doesn't exist." Echoed Tsongas: "That doesn't exist right now, no."
Tsongas grew up on military bases in three continents, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and went to high school in Japan. She was on a ship traveling from San Francisco to Tokyo at 14 when she caught a radio broadcast of John F. Kennedy's nomination speech in 1960, a moment of optimism and opportunity that she said kindled her political interest.
She met Paul Tsongas at a party in Washington, D.C., in 1967, when she was a Smith College student on summer break and he was a congressional intern. After graduation, she spent a year in New York as a social worker, then moved to Lowell in 1969 to marry and help Paul with his first bid for City Council. That campaign and all that followed have been about the desire to effect change, she said.
"That's the thing - I don't want to say inherited - that we shared all along," she said, speaking of her relationship with Paul. "It's not just enough to be against something. You have to be for something, and if you're for something you have to commit to follow through and make sure that that change takes place."
Tsongas spent 35 years in Lowell - including 10 years going back and forth to Washington - as a worker for nonprofits, a mother of three, a partner in politics, and the rock in the family during Paul's fights with the cancer that was first discovered in 1983. She also earned a law degree in 1988 and ran a small practice in Lowell before Paul's 1991-92 presidential run.
After her husband's death in 1997, she served on a variety of Lowell boards, including a city commission that oversaw management of the city's minor-league ballpark and the Tsongas Arena. She also accepted a position at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, creating a department to raise money for the public institution, engage the community, and elevate the school's profile. This year, she took an unpaid leave from her job there as dean of external affairs to run for office.
Four years ago, Tsongas bought a townhouse in Charlestown and moved out of Lowell. She wanted to be closer to her older two daughters. She continued to work in Lowell and consider it home, she said.
She rented an apartment in a converted downtown mill in Lowell when it appeared Martin T. Meehan might leave Congress.
But in some respects, it seems she almost considers herself an incumbent. Late Thursday, after hustling to the event in Carlisle, Tsongas spoke about the unique nature of the special election - and she slipped up, momentarily. "Given my long history in elective office, having been part - no, no, excuse me," she said, correcting herself. "Forget it."
A forgiving crowd cheered her on. "Close enough, Niki! Close enough!" someone cried.
"Clearly I've never held elective office," she said, smiling wearily. "But I do understand the tremendous power and great purpose that resides in public office."
Standing on a cutting board placed atop a milk carton, she quickly reminded the crowd of the differences between herself and what she called a determined Republican opponent, asking the crowd to carry her through next Tuesday. Then she stepped down, on swollen feet, and made her way to the next event. 