Mark Lane: Bob Graham and his notebooks will be missed

First, the notebooks. During his short-lived run in the 2004 presidential race, the national press latched on to Bob Graham’s little candy-colored spiral-top notebooks as a funny detail demonstrating his quirkiness.

This puzzled me because I saw the notebooks as a good thing. They showed someone who was interested in everything around him, a lifelong learner who was listening to people he’d run into. Jot it down, take it home and remember what that guy said. Fun fact: There’s one on his lap in his official state portrait.

You knew you said something that got his attention if the conversation paused, the head bobbed down and the notebook came out.

More: Friends, colleagues react to death of Bob Graham, past Florida governor, U.S. senator

Bob Graham died Tuesday at 87. He’s the rare kind of politician I miss.

Graham was a little-known, wonky, apple-cheeked state senator when he started his run for Florida governor in 1977. But he hit on what became his signature workday gimmick. He’d spend a day doing the jobs that regular Floridians did. Not just photo ops. He’d really pluck chickens, saw timber and wait on tables. One holiday week, he spent the day ringing a bell next to a Salvation Army kettle outside the Volusia Mall. He did 100 workdays that election season and would do more than 400 in the years following.

During the campaign and throughout his career, the workdays struck a chord with voters and generated memorable press coverage. They also generated a lot of notebook entries.

In those days, Florida did not have its current winner-take-all primary system. In a crowded first Democratic primary in September 1978, Graham came in second with 25% of the vote behind the better-known Florida Attorney General Bob Shevin’s 35%. But a month later, Graham surged and handily won 54% of the vote in the runoff primary. (This is another reason I like the two-primary runoff system despite their low voter turnout. A lot of first-round second-placers like Gov. Reubin Askew went on to great careers.)

Graham won the general election and would serve two terms as governor. Despite a shaky start ― the St. Petersburg Times famously labeled him “Governor Jello” for the lack of focus in his early first term ― his time as governor is remembered for its improvement of public education (class sizes were reduced, funding increased, teacher salaries improved, and national ratings went up) and environmental protection (the Save Our Rivers, Save Our Coasts, Save the Everglades initiatives, stronger wetlands rules and manatee protection). By any measure, a successful time in office.

After he was term-limited out of the governorship, he served three terms in the U.S. Senate. After heart valve replacement surgery in 2003, he dropped his presidential bid and announced he would not run for reelection to the Senate.

But back to the notebooks. We live in a time of harsher politics when a lot of our leaders come into office already supplied with talking points to say and an ideological roadmap to follow. They don’t need to hear from you or anyone outside their camp. An ideological warrior doesn’t need a notebook. New information from random people outside the party? That could weaken your resolve. Invite bad thoughts. Turn you into a deviationist. A squish.

One time, my wife (then a reporter, not then my wife) was giving Graham directions on how to get to the local historically Black university, Bethune-Cookman University. (This was in that long-ago age before Google Maps.) He wasn’t sure about the route, so he ditched his driver, jumped into her rusty soccer-mom minivan filled with beach sand from the weekend, moved the Lion King coloring book off the passenger seat, and had her drive him there. This gave him time to ask her about the college, the area and the role of historically Black universities, her kids’ schools, how she came to live in Florida. All recorded in the notebook.

A politician like Graham, who always had his antennae out for what Floridians were thinking, who’d invite himself into their minivans and worksites, who was a pragmatist interested in what was working, an unapologetic wonk who’d dig into the nuts and bolts of policy, and who might, as a bonus, also break into song at odd moments, just isn’t the kind of politician you’re likely to meet anymore.

Instead, we live in a political landscape populated by people who don’t need to hear from noncontributors and are not taking questions. Who disdain what used to be called “kitchen-table issues” in favor of consultant-developed, made-for-the-internet culture-war wedge issues. Who don’t need to know the details or hear from people on the ground. That’s not what gets you clicks. That’s not what gets you on TV.

And we wonder why so little gets accomplished. We need more public figures with notebooks in their pockets.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Bob Graham and his notebooks will be missed