973: Spine & Skin
Complaints vs. Context
You know centrists are having a moment because terms like “spine” and “thick skin” are popping up in the way that the progressive cool kids had candidates who were bold and principled and uncompromising and visionary.
Here’s this morning’s headline from The Opposition,
’s twice-weekly “what the hell are Dems gonna do now” newsletter from The Bulwark:
You can read her whole dispatch from WelcomeFest here, but let’s stick with those terms for a minute.
Voting against your party when it is hard seems to be a good proxy for spine. When we were writing a lot about Republican centrists way back during the speaker fight, NBC reported a GOP aide saying Trump will get his way in their caucus because “the people opposing him are moderates. Either he gets it or the moderates for the first time ever grow a spine.”
In our
guest post “Democrats should try harder to win tough races” we showed a chart of the Democrats who had actually voted differently.
“Thick skin” seems like just generally good advice to explain to people who want to run for office, or support those who do. The most important people we talk to are candidates. There were eighteen 2026 challengers in the audience at WelcomeFest hearing how the most overperforming candidates do it. Some of the haters have framed the explanations of attacks by The Groups and their unwell online compatriots as “complaining”.
But it’s more like akin to sharing context than it is to complaining. It is telling candidates and those who want to support them ‘this is what you need to know!’
Politics is a vocation, and those who excel often treat it like an apprenticeship. Being a candidate is particularly odd. You can’t just read in a book how to run a regular race, much less win over thousands of Trump voters in a federal election.
Idioms
“Thick skin” is an idiom, the goofy non-literal phrases that anyone who has taught English as a Second Language knows well.
“Comfortable in your own skin” is another idiom, and seems related to skin thickness. You can sense it in other people, the relaxed confidence that emanates outwards. It is not a coincidence that the most standout data point in the voting chart,
, puts out that vibe. Never heard the guy complain, but he’ll explain where things are hard to make an apprentice candidate better.Which reminds me of another sinewy guy comfortable in his own skin, and a story that always jumps to mind when I think about candidate apprenticeships.
At the end of a long night at the 2016 DNC, I took the wrong turn off the elevator at the Massachusetts delegation hotel and bumped into Rep. Steve Lynch, who needed to find a vegan snack1.
Boy was I glad to have gotten the hotel points upgrade with the key card that gets you into the drinks & snacks lounge.
Off we went.
It snowballed into a tiny party with some other Boston-area people, including a younger candidate. Rep. Lynch spent about forty minutes counseling him, while I stood quietly soaking in the intricate details shared with his apprentice. It was like watching Bill Belichick explaining a special teams formation down to every last motion.
Lynch’s topic was not donors, or polling, or policy.
It was about how you communicate with a family when a constituent dies in the service of our country. Even now, nine years on, my eyes well up as I type. The care. The intensity.
This was a master with a big heart and a lot of wisdom, passing it on to an apprentice in the next generation.
Steve Lynch is famously tough. No question he’s got thick skin. And spine (he voted against Obamacare!).
But that thick skin comes from the same place as the forty minutes of sleep he lost to share the nuances of the hardest part of his job. He knows who he is.
He knows himself so well that his voters do too.
We write a lot about electoral overperformers. We’ve never mentioned Lynch in this newsletter, and we may not again in the 973 days until the next presidential primary.
You’ll Never Guess
When reporter Jacob Rubashkin asked his followers back in March which Democrat ran the farthest ahead of Kamala Harris, only one person said Steve Lynch.
But they were right. And it will not surprise you who follows him.
Turns out when you find leaders who know who they are, the spine and thick skin are already there.
Gotta keep it short, so that’s all you get there