WASHINGTON — Sen. Mike DeWine and Rep. Sherrod Brown spent the first of their four scheduled debates trying to paint themselves in stereotypes they've been trying to create throughout the campaign: DeWine as a bipartisan consensus builder and Brown as a scrappy fighter for the middle class.

"I'm the one candidate in this race who has demonstrated I can work with Democrats and Republicans to get things done and make things happen for Ohio," DeWine told Meet the Press host Tim Russert, who moderated the debate.

Said Brown: "I've devoted my whole career to fighting for the middle class. Middle-class tax cuts, working to help college kids go to school."

But each also spent the more than 30-minute session knocking down the other's self-described image, and what resulted was a contentious, interruption-filled sparring session punctuated with finger-wags and scoldings.

"Sherrod, you are absolutely unbelievable," DeWine interrupted at one point.

"Mike, Mike, Mike, you know better than that," rejoined Brown at another.

One boiling point: Iraq and body armor for the troops. Brown was still seething from a National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee ad that began airing this week accusing him of voting against an $87 billion funding bill that included body armor for the troops. Sunday, Brown said he voted against the $87 billion "because there was a better way to do it."

"Much of that $87 billion went to Halliburton and went to Bechtel and went to Parsons and it was not — there was no accountability," Brown said. "It was a blank check. I wanted the $87 billion, the money, to go to the troops for body armor."

Nonsense, replied DeWine. "How can you say this when you, Sherrod, voted five different times against funding for body armor when it really counted, when it was real money?" he asked, before telling the congressman, "You do not understand that this is a global war on terror."

Under questioning, DeWine also reiterated his disillusionment with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying flatly, "I don't have confidence in Rumsfeld. He's made major mistakes in this war." Asked by Russert if he would urge the president to replace him, DeWine said, "I think by saying I don't have confidence, it makes it pretty clear what I think." The two also bantered on Brown's pet subject: trade. Brown has argued DeWine supported "job-killing trade agreements" including the Central American Free Trade Agreement, that have sent U.S. jobs overseas.

DeWine countered that he worked with Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to fight overseas steel companies that were dumping steel on the United States. He criticized Brown for shortchanging the benefits of trade, saying one-fourth of Ohio's agricultural products are exported, and one-fourth of Ohio jobs from manufacturing come from exporting to other countries.

But Brown said he is fighting for fair trade, not "one-way free trade" that simply exports U.S. jobs to Mexico and China.

Free trade under DeWine's definition, he said, has caused economic devastation in the Miami Valley, in Lima, and in communities in southeast Ohio.

"We simply have abandoned the middle class when we passed these trade agreements, passed tax laws that give incentives to large corporations to outsource instead of helping our small businesses, helping our communities and helping our workers."