A lot of Republicans say Ronald Reagan was their favorite president.

It would be helpful if Republicans could learn from Reagan, or so claimed former GOP speechwriter Landon Parvin in an interview with the Ripon Society back in 2006:

RF: Why do words still matter in politics at a time when pictures and images seem to count for so much?

Parvin: Well, words still matter if they mean something. Unfortunately, political speeches are too often empty clichés with no intellectual or emotional content. You can see the true power of words, however, when someone articulates an unarticulated truth, such as when Reagan called upon Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” It was so obvious but no president had ever said it. The logic of its truth was unassailable.

RF: Republicans have been struggling in the polls this entire year. Is that because they’ve been using the wrong words to sell their product, or because they are trying to sell a product the public no longer wants to buy?

Parvin: It’s because they don’t have a product. When the Contract with America passed, I helped Newt Gingrich with the only prime time address to the nation that a Speaker of the House had ever given.  The networks put extra lights on the Capitol that night. I remember there was such excitement in the air. Where is the excitement of Republican ideas today? My ironclad rule of speechwriting, which is based on painful experience, is that the speechwriter is the first to know when a campaign has nothing to say because he is the one who has to put it down on paper. I think that’s why we are struggling.

RF: Ronald Reagan defined modern conservatism, and yet he won the support of many Democrats who had never voted for a Republican before. How did he do this and what lessons does it hold for Republicans today?

Parvin: Before voters trust your message they have to trust you. I think people trusted the sincerity of Ronald Reagan and that extended to the sincerity of his beliefs. They liked his geniality. But there was another element. I think people knew that although Reagan was conservative, he was open to new ideas. I am not sure we Republicans today convey a sense we are open and eager for new ideas. Many of our fall-on-their sword constituencies are not open and flexible, and they have come to define us too much. …

RF: Finally, you are known for not only having a way with words, but for having a way with humor. What is the secret of a good political joke, and why do you think there seems to be so little humor in politics these days? 

Parvin: The secret of a good political joke is that it is based on the vulnerability and humanity of the politician.  The reason for the dearth of political humor is due to two things. One, politics has become incredibly bitter and personal. And two, politicians think that humor means doing zingers on their opponent. Every election cycle I get requests from campaigns to do funny zingers as soundbites for the evening news. I turn all that down. The purpose of political humor is to make yourself more likeable—not to stick it to your opponent.  Once you are perceived as likeable, then you can good-naturedly tease your opponent.

I don’t agree with all of Parvin’s conclusions. If Republicans don’t stand for anything (other than their own reelections), what do Democrats stand for? Guess what: Their own reelections. That is, after all, the purpose of a political party, even in Reagan’s day. And by the definition of polling numbers, both political parties, both houses of Congress, and Barack Obama are “struggling,” and deservedly so.

However, Parvin’s key point, that you have to be for something, not just against everything, is certainly accurate. Paul Ryan, for instance, keeps talking about opportunity. Newt Gingrich hatched the Contract with America, and that’s what Investors Business Daily would like to see return:

Voters see the two parties as power-hungry variations of the same theme: tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

One reason for the ambivalence is that congressional Republicans haven’t given voters a reason to hope they can or will change things in Washington.

We hear chatter, however, that the party may roll out a 21st century Contract with America that lays out what the GOP would do in the first 100 days if it controlled both the House and Senate.

Our view is that this couldn’t hurt.

The original Contract engineered by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich 20 years ago set down 10 planks that excited voters and led to one of the biggest election landslides for the party in history.

Surely the Republicans can find six to eight items they can all agree on that would help clean up the rot in Washington and increase jobs and growth. Such reforms should also be broadly popular with voters.

Among the possibilities:

1. Build the Keystone pipeline to create more than 10,000 jobs, increase energy security and help the economy grow. Two of three Americans already support it.

2. Overturn new EPA carbon rules that jeopardize our oil and natural gas and coal industries. Energy independence requires America developing its homegrown resources. The president’s new EPA rules do almost nothing to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, but they put tens of thousands of American jobs at risk as part of the Democrats’ war on coal.

3. Pass job bills already approved by the House but remain bottled up in the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid. Among them: a small-business tax relief act, a bill to make the R&D tax credit permanent and bills to minimize ObamaCare-induced job losses.

4. Begin independent and private audits of the spending patterns of every federal agency. Americans are enraged about the waste and fraud in government spending programs. Watchdog audits would help discover where the waste is and let Congress cut this extraneous spending to help balance the budget.

5. Require congressional approval of any regulation with costs to the economy and small businesses of more than $100 million, as called for in the proposed REINS Act. This would end the scam of rogue independent agencies pushing rules and regulations that impose large costs on businesses that far outweigh the benefits.

6. Impose six-year term limits on Senate committee chairmen and leadership positions, as the House has. The longer politicians of either party sit in positions of power in Washington, the more corrupt they become.

7. Slash the corporate tax to a top 25% rate to keep American businesses and jobs in the U.S. The 35% federal corporate tax is chasing corporations out of America.

8. Review the actions of the Federal Reserve Board to preserve the value of our currency. The Fed has taken unprecedented action with money creation that could cause inflation and destabilize the dollar.