Two gatherings of activists and donors over the weekend, the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday and the Freedom Partners event in Palm Springs on Sunday (also dubbed the Koch primary by the media because of its ties to the fiscally conservative wealthy donors Charles and David Koch) featured several would-be Republican presidential candidates.

Already the commentary is swirling about who made the most of their time on stage, who was best received by attendees, and what it meant that two of the most talked about prospects, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, weren’t at either gathering.

I had the pleasure of appearing on MSNBC’s “Up with Steve Kornacki” on Sunday morning where my, shall we say, left-of-center fellow panelists, David Corn of Mother Jones and Amanda Terkel of The Huffington Post, and I discussed and debated the official unofficial kick-off of the GOP primaries.