Gingrich-Romney battle dominates the final debate before the Florida primary

Republican rivals Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney clashed early and often Thursday night over issues ranging from immigration and personal wealth to the various charges that have been fired in television ads and on the campaign trail as they conducted their final face-to-face confrontation Tuesday’s winner-take-all primary in Florida. 

After a strong win by Gingrich in South Carolina, the stakes for the two leading candidates are high five days before Florida Republicans get their chance to cast their ballots -- and the increasing tension in the campaign has reflected that.

Both candidates were quick to press their attacks against the other, but the debate lacked a single melodramatic moment that a few previous debates had when Gingrich galvanized the crowd by lashing out at the news media.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum were also on stage, but were mostly overshadowed by the increasingly fractious Romney-Gingrich struggle.

Gingrich was asked about the pledge that he made to voters on Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday, “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon,” he said. Gingrich also was asked about his idea of granting U.S. statehood to an American lunar colony.

“I was meeting Rick’s desire for grandiose ideas,” a smiling Gingrich said, referring to Santorum.

But he warned against allowing China to dominate space exploration.

A lunar colony would be “an enormous expense,” Romney cautioned. “I’d rather be re-building housing here in the U.S.”

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