Most people who reach the top of their profession leave the early grind behind. Yoshihiko Noda, who led Japan from 2011 to 2012, seems to have taken a different view. Last Friday, commuters at Minami-Funabashi Station in Chiba may have noticed a familiar face at the ticket gates, handing out flyers.
According to reports, the flyer covered local issues including disaster insurance, child support and prefectural reform. It was a political newsletter, not a campaign spectacle.
Noda reportedly began this routine in 1986, and by most accounts he has kept it up nearly every weekday since. That is roughly four decades of mornings, and it predates nearly everything else in his public life. He was first elected to the Chiba prefectural assembly in 1987 and to the national House of Representatives in 1993. He later served as finance minister and became prime minister in September 2011, in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident.
Noda grew up in modest circumstances in Chiba, and he was not part of the political elite. The station steps were where he introduced himself to voters, long before he had a title to introduce.
Street leafleting is a standard part of Japanese politics, and it is also smart grassroots strategy for any lawmaker who needs to stay connected to a local base. But a strategy only survives 40 years if it becomes something closer to a personal discipline. Noda's premiership involved some of the country's hardest choices, including a politically costly push to raise the consumption tax.
Many of us are told that success means moving up and leaving the early work behind. Noda's example suggests that the small, repeated act that got you started can be worth keeping, even after you no longer need it for the reasons you began.
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