Quite what such a concept entails defies definition as it means something different to everyone.
But what most could be unified by on Thursday, when news of the death of the former prime minister broke, was that he was a fundamentally decent bloke.
"Bloke" is a word which summed up Bolger, a man of absolutely no air or pretensions, to a tee.
He was born the son of King Country farmers, left school at 15 to work on the family dairy farm, and retained close ties to the farm he owned with wife Joan even when politics beckoned.
The B-roll aired on television bulletins on Thursday of Bolger herding cattle in brown Stubbies spoke volumes.
But it also served to emphasise that no matter one’s background and no matter one’s educational achievements, political success is not pre-ordained and that with the right skills and sense of timing you can rise to the top of the greasy pole.
There was also B-roll of his greeting Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth.
Jim Bolger was elected to Parliament in 1972, a rural backbencher who then party leader Robert Muldoon promoted to a rural affairs spokesmanship two years later.
In 1975, when National was re-elected to power, Bolger became an under-secretary, then two years later reached Cabinet rank — a promotion which Muldoon may later have come to regret, as Bolger was deeply involved in two attempts to topple him as leader — one failed, one successful.
Bolger was not a machiavellian office-seeker; his opposition to Muldoon grew from a sense that the prime minister was harming both the country and the National Party’s prospects by remaining in office.
Similarly, his toppling of then party leader Jim McLay had a two-fold aim; it prevented a return to power of Muldoon, and it stopped what Bolger regarded as the jettisoning of National’s most talented senior MPs, Bill Birch and George Gair.
His first term started with an economic crisis — the Bank of New Zealand was close to collapse — and will long be remembered for the cuts implemented by then Finance Minister Ruth Richardson to pay for it all.
Stringencies to the welfare budget, coupled with workforce reforms which eliminated compulsory union membership, made Bolger and his government highly divisive.
Despite this, Bolger also implemented reforms for which he is remembered with respect today: he executed New Zealand’s shift to a proportional representation electoral system, and he introduced the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process.
While the latter was criticised from all sides at the time, and is still the cause of contention for some to this day, it arose from Bolger’s sense that a wrong needed to be righted.
No-one else was going to do it, and he was not one to shirk a task.
The settlement process worked, and continues to work, because Bolger set the template early on.
He, his ministers, and indeed the government as a whole, were not passive observers.
Rather they played an active and interested role in seeking meaningful reparation; iwi such as Tainui and Ngāi Tahu recognised that and responded in kind.
Bolger’s reputation as a centrist was solidified by the post-political life he led following his being deposed by Jenny Shipley in 1997.
After retiring as an MP he became an unlikely go-to man for the Labour-led governments when they needed a unifying figure, and he also engagingly and cogently questioned some of the decisions he had taken while in office, particularly the introduction of neoliberal-inspired economic reforms.
Bolger was always under-estimated while in politics — often to the peril of sceptics — but hindsight gave his reputation fresh respect and lustre, as the sincere eulogies from all parts of the political spectrum on Thursday demonstrated.
