It may be a decidedly anti-Washington year in politics, but Republicans are putting their bets on some D.C. veterans to take back the Senate. The latest example is former Indiana Senator Dan Coats, who served in the House and Senate for 18 years and is now challenging Democrat Evan Bayh.

And Mr. Coats is hardly the only Republican Senate candidate running with experience in Washington, which in another year might be seen as a recruiting coup for the GOP. Others include Congressmen Mark Kirk in Illinois, Mike Castle in Delaware, John Boozman in Arkansas and Roy Blunt in Missouri. Also running are former Congressmen Rob Portman in Ohio, Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.

Polls would seem to suggest the 2010 political landscape won't be a good one for Washington insiders in either party, if that's possible. But Democrats have the most incumbents to defend and the mood facing incumbents hasn't been this bad since 1994, when the GOP stormed back to control Congress. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday found only 36% of voters say they are likely to vote to re-elect their current representative.

Yet there's plenty of evidence that Republicans also haven't won back the public trust they squandered during the GOP corruption and pork barreling of the last decade. With a 44% favorable rating, the GOP is even less popular than it was in 2006 when Democrats won back both chambers of Congress. All things considered, it's probably a year for new faces or outsiders -- though some Republicans obviously hope it's also a good year for Republicans who were somewhere else or kept low profiles during the Bush years.