Mitt Romney listens. Newt Gingrich lectures.

Gingrich wants to colonize the moon.

Romney vows he'd fire anyone who came to him with such a harebrained idea.

Romney is appreciated for clear-eyed analysis, Gingrich for dreaming big.

Gingrich is knocked for being a blowhard.

Romney is knocked for drifting with the political winds.

By now it's clear that the Republican nomination contest is showing the nation stylistic extremes rarely seen in modern presidential politics.

It seems the race, at the top, is between a madcap professor who most appreciates the flow of ideas when it comes from himself and a buttoned-down CEO who likes to fire up a PowerPoint presentation and sound out everyone in a room.