Saturday night I was watching C-SPAN (isn't that what everybody does on Saturday nights?) and I saw an amazing thing -- a speech by Mitt Romney in which he was relaxed and natural, making jokes that weren't painfully awkward. Had I entered a different dimension? Actually, I had traveled back to February 2000, when Romney was addressing the National Press Club. I found the difference between the Romney of 2000 and the Romney of 2012 mesmerizing. It made me wonder: why is running for president so diminishing? What is it about the process that turns thoughtfulness and confidence into desperation and insincerity? We have 25 million people unemployed or underemployed. And yet our presidential campaign has devolved into a never-ending contest to see which side can catch other side in the worst "gaffe."

In this week's Huffington, John Rudolf profiles the Newark Police Department as it faces steep budget and personnel cuts. "Newark's cops do not work at an ordinary job, like the rest of us," John Rudolf writes. The dangers they routinely face make them more like "soldiers on the front lines of a ceaseless, low-intensity war."

This week, America, on its journey down the path toward a more perfect union, continued its prolonged pit-stop at Chick-fil-A. The meal consisted of an overheated "appreciation day" for the fast-food chain, cooked up by Mike Huckabee, and a bitter side order of attacking fat people. No one ever said civil rights wouldn't come with an occasional bout of national indigestion. In India, over 670 million people were thrown into darkness during the biggest blackout since Charlie Sheen's last drinking binge. On Wall Street, a rogue algorithm caused a trading spree that wreaked havoc and gave America's stock markets yet another black eye. Meanwhile, Olympic fever momentarily broke with news that eight badminton players had been disqualified for intentionally losing their matches. All across America, sports fans reacted with disbelief, amazed that badminton is actually an Olympic sport. Lastly, we mourned the passing of a legendary writer and provocateur. RIP Gore Vidal.

With an estimated $2.5 billion bankroll by the time this presidential election is said and done, you'd think pretty much every important issue would get its place in the sun. Well, as it turns out, you don't always get what you pay for.

HuffPost Live launches tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. EST -- and we couldn't be more excited. Every new launch is like a birth, full of hope and uncertainty. And a baby's first words are always remembered. The opening lines spoken on MTV were, "Ladies and gentlemen, rock 'n' roll!" When Ted Turner announced CNN, he promised the network wouldn't "be signing off until the world ends." And ESPN kicked off with, "If you're a fan, what you'll see... may convince you you've gone to sports heaven." Now we're trying to decide what our baby's first words should be. And since HuffPost Live is designed to put the HuffPost community front and center in everything we do, we thought we'd open up the discussion to you. So what do you think our opening words should be? Leave your suggestions in the comments, then tune in tomorrow morning to see if we picked yours.

This week started optimistically, with the hope that Paul Ryan's selection would finally turn campaign 2012 into a big picture discussion about the role of government and the nature of capitalism. Instead, we got outraged reactions to President Obama joking about Seamus the dog, hours of debate over Joe Biden's use of the word "chains," and a back-and-forth between the campaigns about which presidential candidate was "unhinged." It is 78 days until the election, with 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, over 13 million homeowners underwater and our national conversation is still on a level of two children fighting in the back seat of the minivan. Maybe for the first debate, we should strap each candidate into a car seat, give them each a juice box, and let them have at it.

We've set up a system to pick our leaders in which the willingness to lose all self-respect -- to say nothing of our respect -- is one of the essential job requirements.

In this week's issue of Huffington, just in time for the Republican convention, Jon Ward chronicles Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, placing the decision against the backdrop of America's grim fiscal realities. Elsewhere in the issue, Saki Knafo puts the spotlight on a critical period in a child's life in a story about the debate over pre-kindergarten.

In 2000, I co-convened the "Shadow Conventions," which ran concurrently with both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and shined the spotlight on three issues that neither party was seriously addressing: the corrupting influence of money on our politics, the persistence of poverty in America and the disastrous war on drugs. Twelve years later, these three problems have gotten worse. So we are bringing the Shadow Conventions back -- but this time we are using HuffPost Live and the Huffington Post platform to put these neglected issues center stage and make it possible for you to be part of a real discussion about them. In fact, HuffPost Live has already created "green room" pages where you can learn more about these issues, leave a comment and sign up to join an on-air Shadow Convention conversation. Click here for the drug war green room, here for poverty and here for money in politics. The Shadow Conventions are your conventions -- let your voice be heard.

HuffPost Live is bringing you Shadow Conventions 2012 with the goal of sparking a national conversation on three issues that neither party is seriously addressing: the corrupting influence of money on our politics, the persistence of poverty in America, and the disastrous war on drugs. Our new streaming network will devote a day during each of the national conventions to focusing on one of those three issues. Today, HuffPost Live's team of host/producers will be joined by a broad range of politicians, thought leaders, activists, and celebrities for in-depth interviews and panel discussions on various aspects of the drug war. And we want you to be a central part of these discussions. That's what HuffPost Live is all about -- sparking real conversations about issues that impact our lives. The Shadow Conventions are your conventions. Join us and be part of a convention that's unscripted, surprising, and a lot more interesting than the over-produced political commercials in Tampa and Charlotte.