Tsongas grasps a victory

and ROXANNE PATEL MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The crowd cheered. They toasted to the continuing campaign and to immediate victory. They swarmed to the two television sets airing election results, and they roared when Paul Tsongas appeared in the newscast. This was a crowd geared for victory in New Hampshire yesterday, and it was not disappointed. Former Massachusetts Sen. Tsongas beat his opponents in a not-so-surprising outcome yesterday, garnering 34 percent of New Hampshire's votes. Tsongas' nearest competitor was former frontrunner Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton with 26 percent of the state's votes. And hundreds of Tsongas' supporters, outnumbered by the enamored media, filled the Razberrys Club here last night to celebrate overcoming one obstacle on the long road to the White House. "This means our next president is either going to be George Bush or Paul Tsongas," Tsongas' National Campaign Manager Dennis Kannin said. "And it's not going to be George Bush," he added to uproarious cheers from the crowd. Overall, the event seemed more like a media circus than a tense waiting room, perhaps because many political experts had already predicted Tsongas' sure victory days in advance. Reams of reporters and photographers squeezed into the crowded club, equipped with tape recorders and notepads, flashes and batteries and at least 15 television crews. As the evening progressed, the crowd grew thicker, with the supporting mob nearest the stage shouting and cheering, and the press near the rear watching and recording. By 10 p.m. when Tsongas was scheduled to speak, it was impossible to move. "New Hampshire, you did it again," Tsongas told his voters. "You gave them Hell." He told the crowd that it is time to "tell the economic truth," repeating his opposition to a middle-class tax cut. "Washington wake up!" he added. Before and during his speech, the crowd chanted various slogans, including a dig at President Bush, "Read my lips. Paul is number one." Paul LeBlanc, a self-employed Manchester resident, said during the celebration that after a lifetime of voting in elections, Tsongas is the first candidate he has ever really supported. "This is the first time in my life I really got behind a candidate," he said. "I just got ticked off." LeBlanc added that he voted for Bush in 1988 but said he had made a "huge mistake." When Kannin took the stage at 9:30 p.m., he mentioned that since 1952, every president has won the New Hampshire primary the year he was elected. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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