Patrick Ruffini has an excellent post on how conservatives can reclaim economic issues from liberals. A taste:
In 2008, the recession is all about consumers -- be they consumers at the pump, homeowners, or at the grocery store. The recession is hitting all of us a little (rather than just some of us a lot, through lost jobs). This makes it psychologically more damaging, but also more open to a free market populist agenda centered around lower prices for goods in the private economy. If we can get out from under the dead weight that is 28% Presidential approval, the economic issue environment can be turned against the progressives. Liberalism is built around sacrificing lower prices for social goods like the environment, health care, or economic equality. (If this seems charitable, this is because this is how liberals themselves would describe it.) This is the underpinning of their hatred of low-cost Wal-Mart, their thinly-veiled sense of satisfaction with high energy prices, and their consistent opposition to lower taxes.
Some of Ruffini's ideas spring from a reading of Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam's Grand New Party. Both the post and the book are worth your time.