A Curious Choice for a Sunday New York Times Op-Ed

According to Republican pollster Whit Ayres in an op-ed piece, “It’s Still the Year of the Outsider,” published yesterday in the New York Times, it will be extremely difficult for Democrats to use their “failed policies of the George W. Bush administration” strategy against Republican Senate candidates who were nowhere near Washington during the Bush years.

So Mr. Ayres thinks that what matters is that it would be new lawmakers rather than the same old ones who would reinstate failed policies, not that the policies themselves failed.

He also thinks that because his recent poll shows that a majority of independents think that “[h]aving a president and Congress controlled by the Democrats has not worked well for the country because, from the economy to the deficit and the debt, the Democrats have not gotten the job done”—one of two options respondents were asked to choose from—they also think that having a president and Congress controlled by the Republicans worked well for the country because, from the economy to the deficit and the debt, the Republicans brought the country to its current state.

But he has to just guess about this, because his poll didn’t offer it as an option. Maybe next time.