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DES MOINES -- Saturday night's Republican presidential debate was billed as a showdown between front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, but each of the six candidates who took the stage at Drake University embraced the spotlight at various points and reminded a national television audience that the race for the Republican nomination remains deeply unsettled with just over three weeks to go before voting begins.

The debate's most memorable moment came during an exchange between Romney and Rick Perry, who has largely receded from the forefront of the political conversation after a series of stumbles and additional scrutiny left his once surging campaign languishing in the polls.

As Perry and Romney argued about whether a passage in Romney’s most recent book suggested that his Massachusetts health care mandate should be a model for the nation, Romney appeared increasingly agitated.

“Rick, I’ll tell you what,” Romney said, extending his hand toward Perry, who was standing next to him. “10,000 bucks. $10,000 bet?”

Romney continued to hold his hand out, but the Texas governor declined to shake it.

“I'm not in the betting business, but I'll show you the book,” Perry said.

Romney’s unusual offer set off immediate chatter about whether the sight of the multimillionaire candidate offering such a high-priced wager, even in jest, would reinforce perceptions that he is unable to identify with middle-class Americans.

Within minutes, the campaign for Jon Huntsman -- who did not participate in the Iowa debate and instead held a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire as it was taking place -- blasted out an email to reporters that promised to launch a new website domain at 10KBet.com.

National Democrats also appeared to rejoice at the political utility that the moment mighty provide them in the event that Romney becomes the Republican nominee.

“Bet you $10,000 @MittRomney's not going to be happy with this debate performance,” tweeted Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse.

In one of the debate’s other memorable exchanges, moderator George Stephanopoulos pressed Romney to specify areas in which he disagreed with Gingrich.

“We can start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon,” Romney said. “I'm not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that. He said that he would like to eliminate in some cases the child labor laws so that kids could clean schools. I don't agree with that.”

Romney’s line of attack signaled a new effort on his part to portray Gingrich as an unsteady thinker who lacks basic leadership qualities.

The message did not appear to go over well with the former House speaker.

“The only reason you didn't become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994,” Gingrich fired back at Romney, in reference to a previous jab. “Iowa State's doing brilliant things, attracting brilliant students. I want to give them places to go and things to do, and I'm happy to defend the idea that America should be in space and should be there in an aggressive, entrepreneurial way.”