Post Career
In late 1994, Tsongas briefly led an effort to establish a third party, to be led by someone with "national authority", suggesting General Colin Powell for that role. By that time, he was considered "the most popular political figure in Massachusetts."
A few years later, the cancer (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) returned. He died of pneumonia and liver failure on January 18, 1997, two days before his term as President would have ended had he been elected in 1992. He was buried at Lowell Cemetery on Knapp Street; his plot is set on Woodbine Path, overlooking the Concord River.
On January 27, 1998, the Tsongas Arena in Lowell was dedicated in his honor.
In a special election held on October 16, 2007, his widow Niki won the Massachusetts Congressional seat that Paul once held.
Read more about this topic: Paul Tsongas
Famous quotes containing the words post and/or career:
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)