j valentine 25 for our student cam project about student bulling. ,here are $100,000 in prizes with a grand prize of $5,000. deadline is genuine 20, 2016. each week, american history tv brings you archival coverage of asked presidential races -- of past presidential rages -- races. we look back to the campaign of .enator tsongas we join the massachusetts democrat at a photo shoot. cancerongas had battled and his health was an issue in the campaign. arkansas governor bill clinton would go on to win the 1992 nomination with senator tsongas caring seven states.

>> [indiscernible] >> [indistinct chatter]

>> one more stroke. >> i had a misfire. i want to get some of you doing that at the other end of the pool. could we try it one more time? >> [indiscernible] >> there is the picture, which is nice, except the hands of blocking the light on their face. it is still a pretty nice picture. >> how long have you been

swimming? mr. tsongas: since i was in college. and when i left college, that was the end. then about a year and a half ago, the doctor said that the radiation had affected my lungs so i had to do something to , exercise. so i went back to this. about thisd competition and thought that what motivates me. nothing like embarrassment to get you going. it gets you going. i swam last year. i competed with the swim team. >> how often do you swim on a given day? mr. tsongas: now i swim about a mile a day. >> what to think about when you swim? anything? getting to the other end? mr. tsongas: i think very deep thoughts, like how many lapses this. i just try to relax and try -- if you think about anything, it

is distracting. i try to let my mind just float. >> feel good when it is all over? mr. tsongas: when i trained by myself, i am really wasting my time. when i trained with the team, it is a different story. you cannot motivate yourself. you will not drive yourself as fast as you will be driven. i know that people figure that out about four centuries ago. after something like that, when you really get a hard workout, it feels very good. >> what about your children or your wife, do they spur you on to reach for that extra lap? mr. tsongas: my daughter here swims for the team, so she has is a good swimmer. me, they came to see were sure that i was going to embarrass the hell out of them. [laughter] i didn't win, but i was at least in the thick of it. so they were enormously relieved. [laughter] >> ready?

>> beautiful. >> paul tsongas, democratic presidential candidate, tomorrow you make it official. what are you thinking? mr. tsongas: today is just a day to relax and to sort of wander around, be in the house, get my thoughts together and get ready for tomorrow. >> how do you view this? is this the culmination of your career thus far in politics? mr. tsongas: you are talking to someone who has been pleased to be a congressman. so i consider the senate kind of dessert. i am much or what you would call this on the menu. it is not the culmination in the sense of this is where ambition has taken me.

it is more a sense of i have learned something along the way and i have my ideas and the , direction i think the country should go in. it is a culmination in the sense of this is what i think. take it to the country and let the country decide whether it is something they want to embrace. so it is a bit different than the usual step-by-step ascension up the political ladder. >> can you take us to the thought process of what anyone thinks when they look at running for the presidency? mr. tsongas: i remember when i was in the senate that i thought of running for president. and that is a different thought process. at that point it was can i win? so you look at it as, well, this is an election year and four years later and four years later , and you look at everyone else in the senate and see what they are doing and calculate accordingly. that is americana ambition. this is different. this is a sense i have been out

here now in the private sector all these years. i've been out of washington. i see what is going on. i'm concerned about this country's economy and the standard of living that will in,lt from the slide we are and wanted to somehow say that. this began as a book. i began to write it over thanksgiving, and decided i did not want to go around the country again on another book tour. i did that in 1980 and then began to think about running. i went to the doctor in january and said this is what i'm thinking of doing, so test me. not only for the cancer, but stress and how do you rest. that kind of thing. he came back and said do whatever you want, you are fine. then a lot of family discussions, that kind of thing, to make sure we all wanted to do this. and then looking at whether to get somebody else to run on my ideas, whether to run just in new hampshire as a symbolic candidate to get the message

look at finally to running as a candidate throughout the country. what we ended up with was a decision to go into four states, but when the story broke, it broke as an all-out run. it got away from us. are.is not where we obvious he that was the right decision. >> have you talked with former candidates to find out maybe some advice on what you can expect or look forward to? mr. tsongas: well, most of the people who have run in the past i have known in my prior life, so i have had that relationship going back. but i did talk to lloyd benson, al gore, michael dukakis. in fact, i talked to gary hart. he and i served together. we were recently close but not , very close. and he called me back and my secretary said, gary hart is on the line. i was running out to give a

speech, so it went back into get on the phone and said hi, gary. , and he started laughing. the laughter just sort of rolled and rolled. not a word had been spoken between us. almost like there is a new brotherhood now. [laughter] that you have been invited to. after this rather raucous laughter that had no basis to it, i said, why are we laughing? he said, it is life. so it is a unique experience. and this is my turn. >> what do you think you will be facing the next few months? mr. tsongas: for me this is really a campaign of a message. so i am a candidate and the usual kind of thing, but that message has to get out there. there is so much emphasis on getting opinion leaders in the united states whether they are , academic, political activists, those people to read the ideas and have a sense of that, a sense of direction.

in essence, it is a campaign of people who believe not only in you, which is how we used to run campaigns, but not only you but the ideas you represent. so there is a momentum beyond any one person. yes we are in trouble and this is where we have to go. so it is a different kind of campaign than the usual retail handshake i'm a good guy vote for me approach. it is an attempt to say this is what i think the problems are, this is where i think we ought to go. decide whether you want to go there with me. so i never ran a campaign like that before. it is usually one-on-one kind of jousting in a macho combat. this has a different dimension to it. >> what do you think about at the end of the day when you are sitting in a hotel room before getting ready to go to bed in iowa or other states?

what goes through your mind? mr. tsongas: well, unlike other candidates, i am not going to run this campaign as an absentee father or husband. it has been something like almost eight weeks now i have been away from my family three days. i have either brought people with me from my family for i have been here. so i'm not going to be a seven days a week hotel kind of absence. what i think about is i miss, obviously, my family, and it bothers me, but we all believe in this. i'm not going to be -- i did not cease being a father and decide when i decided to run. i would hope that people would respect that. >> what effect did growing up in this part of massachusetts have on paul tsongas? how did it shape who you are? mr. tsongas: growing up. mill cityin an old

that was dying. worked, and you didn't get anything from it. i am not saying i had an unhappy childhood, but when you have a sense of economic decline, it is all consuming. i remember when i left high school i said i am never coming back. i want to go someplace that is on the ascendancy. i was away for 10 years, then i to go back into politics. if you live through not even a year of recession like we are going through now, but year after year after year after year, it does something to your psyche. not only people like me, but anybody in that situation. people go through the depression. you ever forget it. it is really a defining moment expression in terms of who you are and where you come from. so this idea of economic decline, etc. is not a piece of paper given to me by a staffer. i live through it. i know what it is about and i

, don't believe the american people are prepared for a reduced standard of living. and i think the political consequences of that in terms of a demagogue coming along is very scary. george bush will never admit there is a problem because he has been here all the time. you can't say i have been in the white house, we kind of miss this problem, the country cannot compete anymore. they are not going to say that. you turn to the democrats and the democrats have no economic policy that any economist finds credible. i see the road between those two. a lot of what you see in my ideas and in the papers i have written and is a remembrance of those years growing up. >> your dad ran a dry cleaning store? what do you think you would think today?

mr. tsongas: my father was such an avid republican. [laughter] he would -- i know he would vote for me. the question would be would he go to the democratic primary to vote for me? [laughter] he was a staunch nixon republican. when i got to the senate, he said this is wonderful. if only you would have run as a republican, it would have been perfect. you're talking about someone who is an immigrant who came here and i remember when it got to , the senate and he said to me, here iwas growing up , thought a senator with a silver-haired yankee. now it's my son. i think he would be very proud actually. >> what about your wife, what does she think? mr. tsongas: i think both nikki and i have concerns about this. in the other races where ambition really dictated, it was more of a sense of we wanted to be there so we do this. we have a very good life. there is a certain nervousness about losing that, and so it is

not a question where winning would be a joy because it means giving up but we have now, but i think she believes in what i believe in, that we have a responsibility to be out there and do this. and that responsibility goes to the children. that we just cannot sit back here, make a lot of money, pretend there is nothing wrong. but in terms of what you think of normally as candidate and the candidate's wife being totally excited about the prospect of living in the white house, it is wanting it so you can make the changes. it is not wanting it because that is a better life. >> paul tsongas, thank you very much and good luck. mr. tsongas: thanks. announcer: road to the white house rewind continues with more from the 1992 campaign of democrat paul tsongas. the former u.s. senator officially announced his candidacy on april 30, 1991 in his hometown of lowell, massachusetts.

he was the first one in his party to declare for the 1992 race and called his campaign a journey of purpose. arkansas governor bill clinton would go on to win the 1992 democratic presidential nomination with senator tsongas carrying seven states and finishing third. ♪ [applause] [cheering] [applause]