While I was at CPAC today, I watched a panel that was discussing the 2012 election. They showed a clip of David Brooks from a recent Meet the Press appearance, where Brooks was saying that it would be a problem for Republicans to run just on the weakness of the economy since it is cyclical and could improve. He said that Romney needed some new "big ideas" to run on if the economy gets better.
When the clip ended, the moderator asked conservative columnist Cal Thomas what he thought of Brooks advice. He said "I haven't the foggiest idea what he was talking about! We already know what we need!" This got a huge applause.