Public opinion merits "the profoundest respect"

In his New York Times column today, David Brooks (as he so often does) recites emerging conventional Washington wisdom, demanding that Democrats abandon health care reform if the Republicans today win the Massachusetts Senate seat:

Many Democrats, as always, are caught in their insular liberal information loop. They think the polls are bad simply because the economy is bad. They tell each other health care is unpopular because the people aren't sophisticated enough to understand it...