ANALYSIS: HAGAN'S 'SILVER BULLET' MISFIRES

Desperately needing a home run in last night's debate, Timothy F. Hagan
strode to the plate with the biggest bat he could find -- and found himself
sprawling out of the way of a Bob Taft beanball.

Hagan wound up with a respectable appearance against a pitcher with a Hall
of Fame political name in Ohio.

But the Democratic challenger needed to do much more than break even or win
narrowly. To have a reasonable chance in the Nov. 5 election, the Hagan
team had conceded, it needed last night's faceoff to be a turning point in
the campaign.

It wasn't.

"I don't think there was any knockout blow,'' said John Green, director of
the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

Hagan benefited by holding his own with an incumbent governor but didn't
score as heavily as he could have on Taft's vulnerabilities, Green said.

"I was surprised how aggressive Taft was,'' he added. "I don't know if that
put Hagan off his game or not. . . . But toward the end of the debate, we
began to see the 'populist Tim' come out.''

The much-vaunted "silver bullet'' that Hagan's strategists readied for the
debate turned out to be a dud.

When it came time for the candidates to ask each other a question, Hagan --
who earlier had described his blue-collar upbringing by Irish and Italian
immigrants -- rolled out the line he hoped would transform the governor's race.

"With all due respect to your ancestors, if your name wasn't Taft, would
you be standing here this evening?'' Hagan wanted to know.

Taft -- great-grandson of a president and grandson and son of U.S. senators
- -- replied smoothly: "Like you, I am also very proud of my heritage. I feel
blessed and very, very fortunate.''

And that was that. Clunk went the silver bullet. See you in 2006, Democrats.

Even Ohio Democratic Chairman Dennis White -- while contending that Hagan
easily showed up Taft -- lamented that Hagan didn't ask the question used
so effectively by Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter in a 1980 presidential
debate: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?''

As expected, Taft appeared more scripted, often reading from cards that
listed talking points, giving several canned responses and avoiding direct
answers to critical questions. But, despite some typically awkward arm
motions and his usual trouble deciding which word in a sentence to
emphasize, he clearly benefited from his experience in televised debates.
He looked directly into the camera; Hagan appeared to have trouble finding
a focal point.

The usually voluble Hagan was obviously nervous at first, stumbling over
words and failing to say how he would do better after rattling off dismal
statistics for Ohio under Taft's four-year reign. But if viewers stuck
around until the latter part of the debate, they saw Hagan regain his
footing and score rhetorical points, especially in his closing statement --
which Green saw as the most eloquent part of the debate.

Hagan was perhaps at his best and worst in answering the same question,
about the legalization of marijuana for medicinal uses. Taft opposes it,
but Hagan is strongly for it.

Hagan movingly detailed his father's death of cancer three years ago,
noting that drugs already are used to comfort patients on their death bed.
But any points he gained were lost in the next sentence when -- in the
night's weirdest moment -- Hagan said he wouldn't have had a problem
sending his nephew "or someone'' out to buy some marijuana for his ailing
father.

That head-scratcher topped Taft's zany assertion that Hagan wanted to put
an electronic slot machine "in every casino'' -- Ohio has none -- instead
of at every horse track, as Hagan has proposed.

Taft became the aggressor just a couple of minutes into his opening
statement, while Hagan -- on statewide TV for the first time -- seemed rattled.

Winning the coin toss to go first, Taft opened with a familiar litany of
accomplishments, many repeated from his campaign commercials. But then he
quickly switched gears, chastizing Hagan for not believing Ohioans can
solve the problems confronting the state.

Turning directly toward Hagan, Taft said, "Tim, you're wrong. You're dead
wrong.

"Tim's offered a campaign of complaint and criticism, and the few ideas
that he has offered, well, they're wrong for Ohio, too.''

Borrowing a phrase from Taft's 1998 campaign against Lee Fisher, Taft
dubbed Hagan's financial plan a "risky budget scheme'' as he ripped into
several of his proposals.

Ohio Republican Chairman Robert T. Bennett said he was a bit surprised at
Taft's aggressiveness. But he said the governor is sincerely proud of his
record and has grown weary of serving as a punching bag.