That sound-bite by Sharron Angle in response to Harry Reid’s refusal to concede that we have a Social Security solvency problem may have won Angle her seat. It was pithy. It wasn’t crazy. And Reid had no effective retort.

As Nevada politico guru John Ralston put it:

Sharron Angle won The Big Debate. Angle won because she looked relatively credible, appearing not to be the Wicked Witch of the West (Christine O’Donnell is the good witch of the Tea Party) and scoring many more rhetorical points. And she won because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid looked as if he could barely stay on a linear argument, abruptly switching gears and failing to effectively parry or thrust.

The Democrats have assured themselves and instructed voters that the Tea Partiers are loons, racists, and altogether unfit for office. In other words, they have so diminished expectations for their opponents that Angle and others easily amble over the low bar.

Democratic incumbents who previously enjoyed minimal opposition are unprepared to deal with the upstarts. Ralston wonders whether Reid took “himself out, once and for all, with his dismissiveness, his sarcastic and loopy use of ‘my friend’ and Senatese, his shifting of subjects in the middle of thoughts, beginning with his opening statements.”

You see, the Democratic hacks have come to resemble the loony caricature they have painted of their opponents. Yes, the most reasonable person on that stage was Angle.