Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul spar tonight in Jacksonville, their last debate before next Tuesday’s Florida primary. Several polls released this week have shown slight leads for Romney, but Gingrich is still in contention. It helps that a couple of wealthy supporters have given a pro-Gingrich super-PAC $10 million. A large chunk of that money is funding anti-Romney television commercials in Florida.

CNN is broadcasting tonight’s debate, with Wolf Blitzer moderating. I’ll update this post later with highlights. Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I’ve added an anti-Romney and an anti-Gingrich ad after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: Post-debate thoughts are now below.

The pro-Gingrich PAC Winning Our Future is running a “trailer” of a forthcoming made-for-television movie about Mitt Romney called “Blood Money”:

The pro-Romney PAC Restore Our Future is running several anti-Gingrich ads in Florida. Here’s one, called “Reagan.”

Post-debate thoughts:

Wolf Blitzer wasted too much time on stupid questions, like why is your wife awesome.

Ron Paul seemed irrelevant to tonight’s conversation.

Rick Santorum had the best applause lines and best performance overall. Once again, he nailed his closing statement. I am not convinced that he can contend for second place or even a close third in Florida, given his lack of significant paid advertising or ground game. But he drew real blood on Romney over the individual mandate to buy health insurance, no question. If Santorum had money for tv ads, he should run the clip of Romney saying about health care reform, “It’s not worth getting angry about.”

Taking a page from Newt’s book, Santorum chided the moderator:

“We have been playing petty personal politics,” Santorum told Blitzer, his head shaking. “Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out and advise companies – and that’s not the worst thing in the world – and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy because he worked hard? You guys should leave that alone and focus on the issues.”

Mitt Romney wins the “most improved” award. I read that he recently hired a former Michele Bachmann aide, Brett O’Donnell, as a speech coach, and that looks like a great move to me. Finally, Romney had a convincing answer about his wealth, tax returns and investments. His comments on immigration sounded less mean-spirited than in some past debates. He got in some good digs on Gingrich, such as making fun of the moon colony dream. (If I were a businessman and someone came to me wanting to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, “You’re fired.”) My favorite Romney moment was when Gingrich backed off from criticizing his Swiss bank account and offshore holdings, and Romney mused, wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make attacks in interviews that they aren’t willing to back up here. (Steve Kornacki describes that exchange well.)

Romney had some difficult moments too, especially when Santorum challenged him on health care reform. If not for that issue, Romney might have locked up the nomination already. Also, it doesn’t look good when you claim not to know anything about an attack ad that ends with your own voice saying, “I’m Mitt Romney, and I approved this message.” But he didn’t give Newt any big openings, which was his most important task.

Gingrich sounded testy and even more arrogant than usual. He insulted Wolf Blitzer a few times, but didn’t get the typical enthusiastic response from the crowd. At several points it seemed like he got too wrapped up in defending himself when he should have gone on the offensive against Romney. I don’t think he helped himself.

The person I most felt sorry for was that young Palestinian-American Republican. It must have taken a lot of courage for him to stand up and ask that question, only to have the candidates punch him in the gut. Sorry, kid, your demographic bloc isn’t worth pandering to.