WI: a Paul Tsongas presidency

Thomas1195

Banned
I came across Paul Tsonga's "A Call to Economic Arms" and notice that his economic plan consisted of things that quite differed from OTL American economic policies during the 1990s: national investments in strategic/emerging technologies and industries, greater emphasis on civiian technology and manufacturing, industrial policy, increasing investments and savings, reducing reliance on foreign capital, relaxing anti-trust laws... I mean, a way more dirigisme and corporatist approach than the OTL one. Also, the tone and rhetoric here were quite economically nationalist. I don't remember any policies of this kind being proposed by the Clinton Administration IOTL.

What if he won the Nomination and the Presidency? Would this lead to a certain change in US economic policy-making compared to OTL?
 
I came across Paul Tsonga's "A Call to Economic Arms" and notice that his economic plan consisted of things that quite differed from OTL American economic policies during the 1990s: national investments in strategic/emerging technologies and industries, greater emphasis on civiian technology and manufacturing, industrial policy, increasing investments and savings, reducing reliance on foreign capital, relaxing anti-trust laws... I mean, a way more dirigisme and corporatist approach than the OTL one. Also, the tone and rhetoric here were quite economically nationalist. I don't remember any policies of this kind being proposed by the Clinton Administration IOTL.

What if he won the Nomination and the Presidency? Would this lead to a certain change in US economic policy-making compared to OTL?

On economic policy I don't think Tsongas would be much different from Clinton. But he's unlikely to serve out a full term as President. His VP takes office and probably wins in 1996 and again in 2000.

Overall, Tsongas could be a good President but I doubt he'd have much of an impact. He would be remembered as the first Greek-American President though.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
On economic policy I don't think Tsongas would be much different from Clinton
On health and social welfare they would be the same, but clearly there weren't anything close to "A Call to Economic Arm" under Clinton Administration IOTL. Tsongas' economic plan was way less neoliberal, more dirisgisme and more mercantilist. If he manages to push through his economic plan, his presidency could potentially give opening for a more statist/interventionist Democrat in 1996. We all know he used Japan and Germany as examples for his economic platform.
 
Sorry for the trivial response, but Al Franken's Paul Tsongas was one of my favorite SNL presidential impressions back when. It might up Franken's entertainer profile while at the same time giving him a slightly different personal political trajectory.

(I already had this sketch in my head after seeing Cory Booker at Comicon this weekend.)
 
Wasn't he discredited over a hot-headed response in one of the debates? In other words, was he cool and collected enough? The time was the middle of the "Moore's Law" period where computing attributes (processor speed, drive storage capacity) was doubling every two years. Would an aggressive American-centric policy at the time have helped or hurt the industry. I might guess that by 1995, suppression of competition from Japan might hurt. It would lead the way for him to not run for a second term.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Would an aggressive American-centric policy at the time have helped or hurt the industry. I might guess that by 1995, suppression of competition from Japan might hurt.
It would not be too aggressive. Things like loosening anti-trust laws would not pass the Congress. Also, his industrial policy focused on strengthening America's own industrial competitiveness rather than waging trade wars. The US manufacturing sector would be better off.

His efforts to increase savings, reduce deficit and reliance on foreign capital flows would potentially change the outcomes of the Global Financial Crisis (butterflying it away would need extra PODs) by reducing global imbalances.
 
On health and social welfare they would be the same, but clearly there weren't anything close to "A Call to Economic Arm" under Clinton Administration IOTL. Tsongas' economic plan was way less neoliberal, more dirisgisme and more mercantilist. If he manages to push through his economic plan, his presidency could potentially give opening for a more statist/interventionist Democrat in 1996. We all know he used Japan and Germany as examples for his economic platform.

That could take US politics in an interesting direction. But I wonder just how much of Tsongas' program could actually pass through Congress.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
That could take US politics in an interesting direction. But I wonder just how much of Tsongas' program could actually pass through Congress.
I think his window of opportunity would be before the mid-term election, and after if the election went differently from OTL. It also depends on Tsongas' ability to work with the Congress.

At the minimum, he never promised tax cuts, so there would not be failure to pass tax cuts and then raise tax like Clinton IOTL.

The most interesting political development ITTL would be someone skeptical about China succeeding him, let's say he would be more economically nationalist. Such a president might attempt to oppose China's entry into WTO.
 
US-Japan relations take a pretty big hit. He was arguably as vociferous as Gephardt was on the subject of Japan.

But this also might cause issues with NAFTA. I figure he would likely not want to go through with something likely to drive up trade imbalances.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
US-Japan relations take a pretty big hit. He was arguably as vociferous as Gephardt was on the subject of Japan.

But this also might cause issues with NAFTA. I figure he would likely not want to go through with something likely to drive up trade imbalances.
He was pro-NAFTA ironically, as far as IOTL evidence suggested.
Since he would be likely to die in office, the biggest question would be his Democratic successor, especially if he manages to get his economic plan passed. In such case, US economic policymaking would shift towards a more interventionist and dirigisme if not outright mercantilist path, and this means kiss goodbye to Clinton New Democrat presidency unless he is Tsongas' VP.
 
Tsongas might have actually delayed the growing partisan environment. There are numerous instances of him working with Republicans,.

Mitt Romney actually crossed party lines to vote for Tsongas in the Democratic primaries. He also co-founded the Concord Coalition alongside liberal Republican senator Warren Rudman.

Of course, some of this bipartisanship might have been self-serving, very similar to Bill Clinton's New Democratic strategy. Tsongas often used neoliberal language like "government and efficiency don't go together."

But it is likely he could've been a very productive President between 1993-1996, when his health went back into decline, and would have been forced to step down from his health.
 
I do wonder what the reputation and impact of the DLC/New Democrats had a Northeastern technocrat been their standard bearer rather than Southern centrists such as Clinton and Gore. Tsongas may have been to the right of the national Democratic Party in many issues, but I doubt that he would have done as well in the South as Clinton in 1992.
 
I do wonder what the reputation and impact of the DLC/New Democrats had a Northeastern technocrat been their standard bearer rather than Southern centrists such as Clinton and Gore. Tsongas may have been to the right of the national Democratic Party in many issues, but I doubt that he would have done as well in the South as Clinton in 1992.

With the beginning of the flip of the west coast, Republican New England etc, 1992 onwards was, ironically given the two southern Dem nominees, the point at which the Democrats didn't need the south anymore. You can flip every southern state Clinton won and there's still plenty of room to spare. Given how Tsongas did in the primaries and the nature of his candidacy, he'd probably do worse in the big industrial states as well, but you can flip Ohio on top of the entire south, and you're still dealing with over 300 electoral votes.
 
I do wonder what the reputation and impact of the DLC/New Democrats had a Northeastern technocrat been their standard bearer rather than Southern centrists such as Clinton and Gore. Tsongas may have been to the right of the national Democratic Party in many issues, but I doubt that he would have done as well in the South as Clinton in 1992.

It is possible that Tsongas might accelerate the decline of the Southern Democratic Party. A lot of Southern mill towns, which had been Democratic strongholds, shifted over the loss of their industrial bases.

Tsongas, a Greek-American politician, could easily be slandered as an "East Coast radical liberal" no matter now neoliberal he behaves.
 
It is possible that Tsongas might accelerate the decline of the Southern Democratic Party. A lot of Southern mill towns, which had been Democratic strongholds, shifted over the loss of their industrial bases.

Tsongas, a Greek-American politician, could easily be slandered as an "East Coast radical liberal" no matter now neoliberal he behaves.

I do not want to delve too deeply into current politics, but I also get the sense that free trade neoliberalism is not particularly popular in the South and Appalachia on its own, and has to be paired with either cultural conservatism or Bill Clinton's folksy charm to be successful there.
 
I do not want to delve too deeply into current politics, but I also get the sense that free trade neoliberalism is not particularly popular in the South and Appalachia on its own, and has to be paired with either cultural conservatism or Bill Clinton's folksy charm to be successful there.

I'm not trying to either. But Tsongas, because of his immigrant background and New England heritage, could easily be framed as a "liberal."

I wonder if in the ITTL 1996 election, Tsongas cancer might become the basis for a Lewinsky-style scandal.

People will question whether or not Tsongas was aware of his cancer or not, or if Tsongas vice-Presidential choice was also aware. This could be the basis for investigations about a conspiracy to seize the 1996 election.
 
The big question that keeps coming up in this thread is... who is Tsongas's running mate and successor?

Given that he's a white ethnic from the northeast, I imagine that he'd need somebody from middle america or the south. I also think that he would pick somebody moderate-to-conservative in the Democratic Party. To me that pretty much means Gore, Nunn, or Gephardt. Maybe David Boren or Zell Miller. Boren would be fun given that Goldwater said he ought to have been elected President. Evan Bayh might also be a possibility, though he's still pretty green at this point. Two young Indianan VPs in a row would be amusing.


Tsongas won't have as bad a 1994 midterm as Clinton did. I imagine, given his deficit hawkishness, that he wouldn't go for the same comprehensive health reform that Clinton did. He'd try for something more modest and budget-friendly if he tries at all. Modest medicaid expansion? CHIP? Middle-class insurance subsidies? Paid family leave?

Tsongas opposed middle class tax cuts but supported cutting capital gains taxes on stocks and bonds (but not real estate). I imagine this would extend either to (1) corporate tax rate cut as well, (2) more pro-investment loopholes like being able to carry forward losses and not pay taxes on money reinvested into the business, or (3) some combination thereof.

I think it'd be very amusing if the 1994 Massachusetts Senate Race involved a Republican (Mitt Romney) who supported the administration and a Democrat (Ted Kennedy) who opposed it. Romney's kind of wonk-business-mercantilism fits very well with Tsongas. Kennedy would lambast Tsongas's fiscal policy whereas Romney would support it.

Tsongas would pass NAFTA while president. He also would be pretty into giving the Japanese a whack.

Tsongas probably doesn't piss off the populists the way Clinton did. His snubbing of Casey in 1992 wasn't very wise.

Tsongas's mercantilism wasn't of the tariff sort. I imagine there'd be more support and funding for the Export-Import Bank, Small Business Administration, and government research.

Shifting the US towards a more pro-savings (and thus more pro-investment) model would be impactful. The US is a very low-savings country relative to many others. The material condition of many americans would be a bit tighter (due to less consumerism, less imports) and there'd be fewer flows of american capital abroad (so less growth in China, not sure about Mexico). Abundance of capital would mean real interest rates would be lower, which is good for borrowing and investing. The question is, what is that borrowing and investing going into. Houses? Manufacturing? Pharmaceuticals? Services?

Less debt will also mean lower real interest rates.




There's going to be big Foreign Policy differences. Bill Clinton saw himself as a Domestic President and kind of phoned in the international stuff. This isn't to say he wasn't intelligent, it's that it very much wasn't his area of interest. In contrast, Tsongas wanted the US, Europe, and the Pacific Rim to collectively invest in a second Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe. Tsongas's 10 years in the House and Senate would mean he'll have much more alertness with regards to things abroad than Clinton did.


Tsongas was also just more socially liberal than Clinton was. I doubt we'd get DOMA under Tsongas. I figure there'd be more environmental conservation under Tsongas.
 
I could be wrong on this but I seem to remember Tsongas being described as the "wine track" candidate, much like Bill Bradley and Barack Obama later would be. To the extent that this mattered in terms of policy, I don't really think so. Essentially, though, what this meant was that he was winning white collar Democrats, and he wasn't winning nearly enough African-Americans, while Clinton and Brown fought over labor and the traditional blue collar Democratic vote.

The thing about deficit reduction is it tends to be quite popular as long as you are balancing the budget with other people's stuff. If your stuff is on the chopping block, suddenly that becomes a whole different issue. This puts a damper on any politician who comes out with that message. At the same time, in 1992, with a slumped economy, deficit reduction is especially weak as a political position. I would say that Tsongas needs to de-emphasize that, and focus on the economic nationalist message. It has a much broader appeal.

Turning rightwards on the economy meant several different things. Tsongas espoused little regards for tax relief to meet the recession, while Clinton promised tax cuts. Tsongas promised deficit reductions, however. Now, basically all political evidence says that promising a tax cut is a far more popular thing than promising to reduce deficits. And worse, the idea of "Taxachussetts" was still alive and well with good reason at the time. Tsongas made himself a massive target as a result.
 
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