The first Morning Jolt of the week:

Welcome to Debate Week. (Cue Sirius, The Alan Parsons Project)
Don’t like the fact that your favorite is stuck at the kiddie table debate/warm-up act? Blame Fox News… and yes, the Republican National Committee signed off on the idea.
The Aug. 6 debate is hosted by Fox News, in conjunction with Facebook and the Ohio Republican Party.
The 9 p.m. ET stage will be open to the top 10 candidates in recent national polls. With 17 total candidates now in the race – former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore was the latest, announcing his bid Thursday – not everyone will make the cut.
Those who don’t can qualify for an earlier debate, at 5 p.m. Fox News has eased the criteria for that debate, and candidates will no longer have to reach at least 1 percent in the polls to make the stage, though there are other criteria.
Right now, it looks like the prime-time selection won’t include Carly Fiorina (groan) Bobby Jindal (double groan) or Rick Perry (triple groan).
Also, the guy who won the Iowa caucuses last time probably won’t be up there, either.
“National polls mean nothing,” Rick Santorum said. “It’s just an arbitrary figure. And unfortunately the networks and the RNC have gone along with this irrelevant legitimacy of candidacy and then have the ability to influence who is in the top ten by the amount of coverage they get and the amount of advertising dollars.”
If you’re not on the big stage, it makes sense to downplay it. But let’s face it – being in the top ten by early August shouldn’t be an impossible goal for most of these candidates. It was an early threshold they failed to reach.
“This is not a one-shot pony here,” Rick Perry said on Fox News Sunday. “We’ve got a full campaign in front of us.”
James Thurber, head of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said that while making the top tier obviously is preferred, “it guarantees nothing but some publicity for a day unless a candidate makes a major mistake or slip of tongue.”
But Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, asked: “Who would willingly trade a place at the adult debate for the kids table? Placement sends an unmistakable message about a candidate’s chances to win—and donors and activists will get it right away.”