What makes that a great idea? - Granite Grok

What makes that a great idea?

The NH GOP should go “X Contests” a la the Ansari X Prize that was offered by the X Foundation

WMURFrank Guinta was on WMUR’s (just like the logo says) “Close Up” – no big surprise as like all shows, we are now in the “wrap up for the year” time slot for all the news and talking head shows.  This week was one of “quick bites” from politicians from both sides of the aisle and Frank basically got one quick shot at it – but brings up an interesting concept:

Be respectful of different views and perspectives in our party because there are a lot of great ideas. Whether you identify yourself as an ideologically in the middle or on the Right, there are a lot of ideas that come from different people.

Indeed!  I have often said that the only people who have a monopoly on good ideas are those that, well, have good ideas.  And yes, they can come from a bunch of people and sometimes, from people you have never heard of before but has taken quite a different slant than the Conventional Wisdom would dictate.  However, this does beg a question: HOW do you decide what is a great idea – or not?

I have a suggestion (yeah, no surprise there, eh?).  Usually, great ideas fall into a few categories: 

  • Completely simplifies an existing process in a far cheaper and faster method (the cotton gin)
  • Make a tremendously large or irritating problem irrelevant (oil drilling made hunting for whale blubber / oil economically unfeasible and silly, discovery of penicillin)
  • Changes ordinary life in a new and extraordinary way (the incandescent light bulb)

Politics?  Not so easy anymore – I can’t think of a better one than the US or NH Constitutions and the values they codify.  Unless of course, it is returning to those values and ridding ourselves of that scourge known as Progressivism (incremental socialism).  So I propose that any idea that incorporates those two values (which by definition, should adhere to the NH GOP Platform as well) should automatically be deemed as such (and one that exceedingly annoys Liberals gets bonus points).

Sidenote: The NH GOP should go “X Contests” a la the Ansari X Prize that was offered by the X Foundation for a private sector reusable spacecraft.  Scrape together some funds, organize contests for ideas and legislation.

Guinta continues:

Let’s find a way to manage those ideas and come to reasonable conclusions about legislative agendas and how we can prove to people that we are the Party of smaller government, that we are the party about job creation, that we are the party of economic freedom.  Those are the things that I am going to continue to talk about over the course of the next year.

Well, this does mean setting up an infrastructure that would bring representatives from all of the wings / factions / parts of the Party together on a regular basis – plus the “Good Idea Folks”.  It would also have to be well in front of proposed legislation and votes as well.  Questions abound – a couple from me right now:

  • What if the idea or piece of proposed legislation ran counter to major tenets of the Platform or Constitution?  Well, I fall back on the idea of Consistency builds Trust
  • If it seemed that elected officials were in favor of such but everyone else was saying no, would they accept the expressed  negative opinion?
  • Would such “members” be rotated in and out, or would it calcify from the get go?
  • How many members from which factions get represented?

I could think of bunches more, but those would be typical – and important.

A good idea – wonder why it wasn’t thought of before?    8^)

>