Folks following the contest between Ed Case and Mazie Hirono by now know the familiar contours of this race.

Just to name two: Who doesn’t know that Case held 172 talk stories while he was in the U.S. Congress and that Hirono has pushed for helping Koreans and Chinese with travel visas to the U.S.?

Those well-trod points cropped up again in the Hawaii Public Radio debate Wednesday evening between the two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate.

But there were also fresh developments that show just why it’s so valuable for voters to see these two candidates spar over the issues of the day.

Among the things that stood out at the Atherton studio, where moderator Wayne Yoshioka posed the questions, was Hirono’s emphasis on women’s issues. She pressed Case on votes he took as a congressman that she said were Republican efforts to limit funding on mammograms and obstetrics and gynecology visits.

Saying that Case had sided with GOP budget priorities over the needs of women, she asked him, “How can we trust you to stand up for women’s access to these services?”

Case responded well enough, accusing Hirono of cherry-picking his record and ignoring that a group like Planned Parenthood had given him a 100 percent approval rating.

But Hirono scored points nonetheless.

Case had a fresh attack of his own, however.

Observing that Hirono had supported a budget proposal introduced by the progressive caucus of the U.S. House, of which she is a member, that would have raise taxes and cut defense spending, Case argued that Hirono had a political philosophy that placed her on the lefty fringe of her party.

With that kind of political orientation, Case asked, “How are you going to solve our budget crisis?”

Hirono responed by saying she was proud to be a progressive and that she has also supported a budget proposal from the African-American caucus. Her point was that she believed it important to consider alternative views — and anyway, she said, she ended up voting for the budget that did pass.

Ed Case on the wrong side of the war on women? Mazie Hirono as powerless as her progressive pals?

The Senate campaign enters a new phase.

Final Debate Thursday

The new phase of the campaign will be without debates, unless Oahu Democrats reschedule a forum they had planned for May.

The last joint appearance between Case and Hirono is expected to be Thursday evening on PBS Hawaii. If HPR’s debate is any indication, it could be a good show.

Like the HPR debate, it didn’t just focus on a handful of issues like tourism and entitlement programs.

While there was the usual political blather we’ve already heard — you know, how job creation comes first, for instance — Yoshioka pitched question on infrastructure, gay marriage, military build up in the islands, education and how either would beat Linda Lingle come November.

Some of the best stuff came when the candidates were able to ask each other questions, as Yoshioka allowed several times, and in the followup responses to those questions and others. That allowed the candidates some leeway to delve deeper into some issues and hone their thoughts.

Hirono asked Case about all those talk stories and what he had accomplished from them. Case responded that it allowed him to learn about what his constituents wanted.

It was only after a few minutes that Case caught on that Hirono wanted to hear specific examples. He finally brought up how he helped a Lanai veteran with medical trips to Tripler Army Medical Center on Oahu.

But Hirono was able to use the question to point to how she had helped secure money to clean up a World War II-era dump in Waimanalo and help Kauai with a charter school.

“That is the kind of concrete examples I am talking about,” she said.

Case, meantime, wanted to talk about values.

It can be a loaded term. Who doesn’t support keiki, kupuna and ohana? What it sometimes suggests, though, is that one candidate really has much more in common with local people than the other — a subtle form of playing the race card.

Case, who has talked a lot about his beliefs, chose on Thursday to begin the debate by reciting his values — equality, opportunity, compassion, tolerance, intergity, responsibility, hard work, perseverance and — yes — ohana.

It seemed Case intends to co-opt the values issue and blunt Hirono’s ability to use it to her advantage. We shall see if it works.

Couple of other things:

• Kudos to Hirono for reminding voters that she opposed Hawaii’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 1998, when she was running for re-election as lieutenant governor while her boss, Gov. Ben Cayetano, supported the ban.

• Kudos as well to Case for being an early and ardent support of gay rights when he was in the Legislature when it was not a popular position to take. Either candidate will be able to take gay rights and use it effectively against Lingle, who vetoed civil unions.

Finally, some observations from the control room at HPR, where I watched and listened to the debate.

Hirono brought notes and took notes during the debate. She rarely looked at Case and usually spoke directly to the small, invited audience in the studio, which included supporters like campaign chair Tim Johns. My takeaway is that it made her sound as if she were talking to someone across the kitchen table — a personal appeal that may have aired well.

Case brought a huge binder with Post-it Notes marking pages. I didn’t see him making many notes, if any, but did see him quietly leafing through the binder and then reading from it for many of his answers. It had the effect of making Case sound a little scripted, if articulate, which may have aired well, too. He did not seem to look at the audience much, which included his dad, Jim Case, but did often look directly at Mazie as she spoke.

All of which underscores why I think the state would benefit from more debates between these two candidates.

But, we’ll have to take what we can get.