For Democrats, the looming primary race for the U.S. Senate will be a difficult decision. Last week’s debate on PBS Hawaii between U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono and former U.S. Rep. Ed Case certainly didn’t help.

Although the pair sat at the table with moderator Dan Boylan, the two might as well have been on separate islands. The debate was held 58 days before the election and is not likely to have any effect on the voters.

If anything, the only service of the televised meeting was to assure Hirono and Case supporters that they have not changed.

They were talking to different groups of voters, and their positions on the economy showed the clearest differences.

Hirono supports federal spending to create jobs; Case supports helping the private sector make more jobs.

"Mazie’s political philosophy is quite extreme; she is the seventh most liberal member of the U.S. House … I am different, I am a Democrat, but I tend to be a little bit more moderate," said Case, adding that it would be the moderates who could find compromises for a balanced budget.

Hirono sought to move the issue away from political descriptions and into morality.

"This is not about left or right, it is about right or wrong … I am focusing on doing the right thing for Hawaii," Hirono said, adding her biggest accomplishments were in "bringing people together."

No one was brought together when the two tried to compare their voting records. Hirono and Case disagreed on support for the Iraq war, pulling out of Afghanistan and supporting President Barack Obama.

The problem with debate questions such as those is that the U.S. House takes dozens of votes on amendments to bills before actually voting on the main bill. Each one of those amendments carries a position, so, as Hirono has previously noted, she has voted for both the Progressive Caucus version of the budget and the Black Caucus version of the budget, while Case has voted for amendments of the budget needed to push the bill forward but that included cuts to favored programs.

If there is a litmus test for the Case and Hirono budget philosophy, it depends on the sort of paper the viewer is holding to make the test.

Voters interested in how special interest groups rate the two candidates will find the best place to go is VoteSmart.org. This nonpartisan service is the absolute vacuum cleaner of various pressure group rankings.

Case is at 100 percent for voting right, according to the National Organization for Women; so is Hirono. The National Rifle Association gives both of them an F. The highest score Case gets from the Citizens Against Government Waste is 32 percent, while Hirono’s high mark is 2 percent.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, which has already spent $500,000 on ads supporting the likely GOP candidate for the Senate, former Gov. Linda Lingle, has given mediocre ratings to both Hirono and Case.

Hirono is listed at 48 percent and Case at 51 percent.

The one issue with the clearest divide is on the issue of having more debates. Case says yes; Hirono says no.

"Here the real tragedy of this … there are 58 days until the primary, Mazie’s plan is basically to go dark on any debate or joint appearances.

"Mazie, I hope you do change your mind in the next 58 days because I believe the voters do deserve that," Case said.

Hirono, who had already marveled at the fact that the PBS debate was their fourth meeting, answered by changing the subject, saying: "The voters deserve a senator who shares their values and stands with them, and I have a record that exemplifies that."

Unfortunately, what needs to be exemplified are the substantive qualities of both candidates, which is most efficiently done by having the candidates question each other in a real debate with the public watching. That hasn’t happened, and it should.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.