Henry Rollins wears many hats. He has his musician hat (that he no longer wears), which he earned from singing with State Of Alert, Black Flag and the Rollins Band.  He has his acting hat (which still uses) that he’s worn on two dozen film sets and several television shows, including Sons of Anarchy and the forthcoming Dark Prophet. And finally, he wears his activist hat (which he never takes off). Highbrow Magazine writer Sam Chapin recently had the chance to ask Rollins a few questions about the broad spectrum of his interests and endeavors. 

Mitt Romney -- whose candidacy has been characterized by more "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Romney" moments than are easily quantifiable -- is finally starting to reveal who he really is. On Monday, veteran Washington reporter David Corn of Mother Jones magazine released a video that was secretly taped in May at a private campaign fundraiser, in which Romney expresses disdain for "the 47 percent" of Americans who, according to him, don't pay federal income taxes.

Nearly 50 million Americans now are in poverty. One in four children will grow up in impoverished households. Redressing poverty is a national emergency and a moral imperative. In our money-drenched political debate, the poor receive little attention. Yet they could be the swing vote in this election.

Obama has tried to be consistent with his all-of-the-above approach [to energy]…[which] puts a big emphasis on renewables, and Romney has been all over the place on this issue... At least you know what you are getting with Obama. You have no idea what you are getting with Romney. (But) the environmental movement is going to have to push Obama the day after the election.

But it’s clear that most members of Congress are not really loyal to their party ideologies the way their constituents who voted them into office are.  They are loyal primarily to political expediency, which for them really means, “How will this vote affect my political career/ability to get re-elected?”   Since 2008, there has been a slight shift in voter registration as 2.5 million people have left the Democratic and Republican parties, while the ranks of the Independents has seen a modest increase. And what about when the POTUS  gets into office?  How many of his campaign promises does he actually keep?

Once again, the Obama campaign has done a great job of engaging voters through the two most popular social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, with Romney right on his tails. Ironically, the candidates’ official sites appear to be nearly identical to each other; loaded with pictures, facts, and links for visitors to click if they happen to be feeling generous, they seem more like personal blogs than campaign sites. This sort of behind-the-scenes, intimate approach works well for both candidates. President Obama’s Twitter account, for example, often feels like an extension of his own diary. 

Romney and Ryan, like Reagan before them, rip a page directly from the time-tested Southern Strategy playbook of Richard Nixon for GOP presidential candidates. The strategy has always had two prongs. One is to attack the liberals and bloated and tax-and-spend big government. The second is to firmly lock down the majority popular and electoral vote in the 11 old Confederate and Border states. 

In an apparent off-the-cuff remark, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan gushed that he thought it was a “cool thing” that an African-American was president. But Ryan’s rapture with President Obama didn’t last past the first sentence. In the next breath he quickly added that he didn’t like much else about Obama. The much else was how much Obama has spent on health, education and job development programs that would help the poor and minorities. That spending has been fiscal heresy for Ryan.

The legion of websites, bloggers, talk show jocks, and the occasional GOP official that has teed off on President Obama and at times Michelle Obama with assorted borderline racist digs, taunts, and depictions have been relentless. The offensive remarks quickly evoke a storm of outrage, and the offender gets rebuked. This happens because they are public figures, and their comments are publicly aired. They fly high on the public’s radar scope. 

Even a small drop in the percentage and number of black votes in the traditional must-win states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia that Obama won in 2008, could spell potential disaster for him this time around. Romney will take every opportunity to shove the notion down the throats of black voters that Obama’s alleged failures on the economy have directly resulted in mounting economic misery in poor black communities.