The greatest lesson that President George H. W. Bush — warrior, statesman, politician and peacemaker — can teach us, and future generations, is that a public figure can be good, as well as great. That is what we should expect and demand of America’s public servants, even if they too often fall short.

Most of my life intersected only tangentially with the former president: he trained to be a World War II naval aviator at my alma mater, the University of North Carolina, and in the 1960s he served on the House Ways and Means Committee, where I would work decades later. His re-election campaign in 1992 was the first presidential race I followed through nearly adult eyes. And the story of his life so inspired me that I still use Richard Ben Cramer’s masterful, “What It Takes” (which includes a biography of Bush and the story of the 1988 presidential campaign) as a textbook in courses I teach at the University of North Carolina and Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

The elder Bush impressed upon everyone around him the importance of respecting the people he hoped to serve and the power and love of family.

I didn’t truly understand the power of the late president’s example until I spent a year working for his son, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, on his own presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016. Throughout that effort, it was clear that George H.W. Bush was the lodestar of Jeb’s public service — the true north that he always turned toward, in matters large and small.

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Recalling his father’s attacks against nationalist primary opponent Pat Buchanan for driving a Mercedes Benz, Jeb traded his Audi for a Ford. Honoring the old dictum that a man must master his own body before he can lead other men, Jeb embarked on a grueling diet and exercise regime (according to Jon Meacham’s masterful biography, George H.W. — who always seemed to embody lanky patrician grace — often lunched on protein shakes in the White House to maintain his lean figure). That physical preparation served Jeb well in the campaign: During the third hour of what was billed as a two-hour CNN debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he was sharp, crisp and alert as rivals like Donald Trump and Chris Christie slumped exhausted over their podiums. And, like his father before him, Jeb followed every meeting with a flurry of hand-written thank you notes.

More broadly, the elder Bush impressed upon everyone around him the importance of respecting the people he hoped to serve and the power and love of family.