WHAT THE Democrats don't need, as one wag put it, is another Greek from Massachusetts. Yet there was Paul Tsongas [last] week, arms outstretched almost sacrificially, braving the rains in post-industrial Lowell, Mass., his old stomping ground, announcing that he's ready to take on President Bush in '92. . . .

OK, he's a long shot even within his own underdog party, but . . . Tsongas is doing something that national Democrats have been avoiding far too long. He's talking about breaking stride with comfortably familiar Democratic positions-as-usual. And for that alone, he deserves some serious attention, especially from any heavier-weights contemplating runs against the commander in chief. . . .

We're not enamored of every item in his agenda. But in going wholesale with the pragmatic, you-can't-keep-slicing-a-shrinking-pie manifesto he pushed in his brief Senate career, Tsongas may finally be giving Democrats a nudge to rethink the attitudes that have lost them the White House for lo these many campaigns.

jTC