Sherrod Brown signaled his strong opposition to NAFTA and the PNTR deal with China, a position that resonates in Ohio. His signature line that "Ohio's number one export is jobs" was a direct refutation to Senator DeWine's claims that these trade agreements help Ohio's export industries such as agriculture.  Brown also scored with his specific references to Ohio cities that were hurt by the trade agreements.  Mike DeWine fought back by saying "we can't build a wall around Ohio" and identifying a few areas where he had worked with Democrats in the Senate to modify trade agreement to protect Ohio.  Overall, Brown maintained his advantage on this natural issue for Democrats in a rust belt state like Ohio. Edge Brown.

Issue #2 - Corruption  

Brown also capitalized on another issue that particularly resonates in Ohio, government corruption.  Outgoing Republican Governor Bob Taft's administration has been found guilty of numerous ethical and legal violations, causing his approval rating to drop below even Dick Cheney territory.  Combine those home-cooked scandals with the troubles that disproportionately plague the GOP nationally, such as the Abramoff trial, and this issue is quite ripe for Brown.  

DeWine, to some extent, was at a disadvantage in the way this played out on MTP by having to speak first.  DeWine said what anyone would expect him to - that he wasn't involved in any of these problems directly, and that Ohioan's knew him and would judge him on his own.   Brown countered with specific charges about DeWine, describing his connections to the national and Ohio scandals.  DeWine did not respond directly to either of these specific accusations, allowing them to linger and possibly stick.  No equivalent assertions were even alleged regarding Sherrod Brown. Edge Brown.

Issue #3 - Iraq  

This issue had several components.  In terms of the wisdom of the decision to go to war initially, Brown stressed his opposition.  Senator DeWine admitted that "if he knew then what he knows now about Iraq's WMD" he would not have supported the war.  This position makes DeWine seem reasonable and moderate in comparison to other more stubborn members of his party.

In terms of the "where do we go from here" issue - neither Brown nor DeWine offered much in terms of concrete suggestions for how to improve our current situation.  Surprisingly, Representative Brown did not make much effort attempting to tie Senator DeWine to President Bush's "stay the course" strategy.

Brown did have one strong argument in defense of future deadlines. He alleged that if the US looks like it is going to remain in Iraq for a long time the Iraqi's will have less incentive to get their act together, make compromises and take control themselves. On the other hand, Brown failed to provide any evidence or other warrants for this claim.  DeWine scored heavily by providing evidence of three Generals who have testified in front of Congress recently, each of whom was critical of the Bush policy, but who also thought it would be a mistake to set a fixed time for departure.  DeWine also stressed how the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

Brown missed an enormous opportunity when DeWine inexplicably said that "we really aren't in the war for Iraqi's, we're in the war for us."  This opened the door for Brown to say something like "I thought we were in the war to help the Iraqi's establish a democracy."  But instead Brown missed this fat pitch. Edge DeWine.

Issue #4 - The War on Terrorism

Again, we felt that Brown missed an opportunity to offer a clear and concise statement for why he voted against the Patriot Act - something along the lines of "Well, I didn't find parts of the Act to be so patriotic.  Is it patriotic to snoop through someone's library records or email?  Is it patriotic to listen in on phone conversations of innocent people without a warrant?" etc.  He could have tied this answer into an opposition of "big government" that would appeal to Ohio's many rural voters and perhaps related it back to the corruption issue.  He did none of that.  

On the other hand, Brown did score substantially on the issue of how the war in Iraq had made us "less safe" because we "took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan" both of which are recent talking points for Democrats.  

DeWine aggressively pressed Brown on the issue of the Patriot Act.  Less persuasively, he made two conflicting statements about terrorist motivation.  He claimed that terrorists hate the United State, and that no matter what we do in Iraq, they have so many other motivations our occupation doesn't really matter.  He then said, in virtually the next breath, that if we pull out prematurely that it would increase the terrorists' motivation.  We think it's fair to point out the inconsistency of these views.  Sherrod Brown failed to do that, however. Edge - Tie

Issue #5 - Bipartisanship

Mike DeWine had a nice list of areas where he had worked across the aisle to write legislation.  He twice charged that Representative Brown was on the fringe of the Democratic Party, citing specific examples where Brown had a voting record to the left of well-established liberal icons such as Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.  Brown never successfully responded to these points. Edge - DeWine

Issue #6 - Independence

We were surprised at how little this debate focused on Senator DeWine's loyalty to President Bush - especially given the large number of paid commercials we've seen on that particular point.   President Bush in increasingly unpopular in Ohio, a state that he carried in both 2000 and 2004.

Tim Russert, the moderator, helped raise the issue by outlining statistics of how frequently DeWine had voted with Bush over the years.  Surprisingly DeWine didn't offer any examples, as he had done in previous debates, to show important areas where he had voted against the President's wishes.  He also could have pointed out how his percentages of support for the President were far lower than most GOP Senators.

Sherrod Brown has a very effective argument on this issue - namely the number of times that he "voted against the President of his party" during the Clinton years on issues such as NAFTA and the line-item veto. Edge - Brown

Issue #7 - Local Appeals and References

We were impressed by Sherrod Brown's repeated use of specific references to the State of Ohio.  He listed several Ohio cities that had been adversely affected by trade deals.  He mentioned I-70 and the I-90 corridor as possible terrorist routes.  He also talked about the ways in which government policies affect average people, like flying on airplanes.  We did not notice a single reference by Senator DeWine to Ohio. Edge - Brown

Sleeper Issue - The Foley Page Scandal

We doubt that many Ohioans care about this issue in terms of Representative Foley himself.  After all, Foley is from Florida not Ohio, and neither DeWine nor Brown had any direct connection to the situation.  On the other hand, yesterday's startling revelation that GOP House leaders may have known about Foley's behavior a year earlier and did little or nothing about it may create a potentially explosive situation for DeWine.  In this debate, Brown was willing to state unequivocally that he though any leader who knew about Foley's emails and did nothing, should step down.  DeWine waffled.   This may turn out to be a huge mistake by Senator DeWine in this debate, particularly given his reliance on support from cultural conservatives. We'll see where this goes over the next few days.
Edge - Too soon to tell

Overall we judged that the issues added up to a win for Sherrod Brown, although a narrow one.   Brown also likely benefited from simply appearing on the same platform as DeWine, since DeWine is well known across the state.  For many Ohioans it was probably their first direct exposure to Brown.  Futher, the ultimate impact of the debate will depend crucially on the relative importance that Ohio voters place on the competing issues - for example, how do the issues of trade and corruption resonate in comparison to the war in Iraq and terrorism.