Perhaps more correctly, "Neocon" is now anything the left disagrees with.

Sort of like Marxist or of late fascist for those on the right.

Why do I feel that Newsweek's isolated 15 point lead was just an attempt to manipulate people to step up on the left and middle and give up on the right...This is but Newsweek's version of Clinton and Obama's triangulation game -take both sides only they didn't quite do it as simultaniously as the Pols did.

So now they're balanced. That should make you happy, right?

This is but Newsweek's version of Clinton and Obama's triangulation game -take both sides only they didn't quite do it as simultaniously as the Pols did.

For the second straight day, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that the race for the White House is tied. Sunday’s numbers show Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 43% of the vote. When "leaners" are included, the two candidates are tied at 46%. For most of the past month-and-a-half, Obama has led McCain by approximately five percentage points.

I don't think so. Interesting.

Nowadays, "neoconservative" is used almost exclusively in the foreign policy sense.

I'm with Schuler, here. Perhaps more correctly, "Neocon" is now anything the left disagrees with.

OTB: Obama Plunges in Newsweek Poll!
The Moderate Voice: Contradictory Polls: Obama Falling, Obama Rising
The Other McCain: A Democratic Landslide?
Hot Air: A Commander in Chief That Fears the Military?
Iowahawk: The Q is for Quality
Freedom Folks: Hel...

BTW, James, have I mentioned that Michael Harrington was an alumnus of my high school? A few years before my time there.

The poll where Obama was ahead by 15 points had 23% GOP, 38% dems, 35% indys and 4% don't know/other.
In that poll, 12%R, 80%D and 48%I backed Obama. 78%R, 11%D and 36%I backed McCain.

The poll where Obama is ahead by 3 points has 28% GOP, 35% dems, 33% indys and 4% don't know/other.
In that poll, 12% R, 81%D and 34% I backed Obama. 83% R, 11% D and 41% I backed McCain.

So understanding the swing is pretty simple. The R and D crossover was constant. McCain made a little progress consolidating his base while Obama stayed essentially flat. But Obama has moved a lot of independents into the don't know or McCain column.

So between the different party weighting and the independent shift, I think we can explain why the poll moved so much. That still leaves the question of is newsweek's shift jest moving into reality (aka in line with the other polls), or did something really shift in the electorate (e.g. independents deciding that Obama was just another pol after all).

"Neocon" has a very limited meaning that doesn't work here. Wikipedia gives a reasonably concise history:

The term neoconservative was originally used as a criticism against liberals who had "moved to the right". Michael Harrington, a democratic socialist, coined the usage of neoconservative in a 1973 Dissent magazine article concerning welfare policy. According to E. J. Dionne, the nascent neoconservatives were driven by "the notion that liberalism" had failed and "no longer knew what it was talking about."

The first major neoconservative to embrace the term was Irving Kristol, in his 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'Neoconservative.'" Kristol's ideas had been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited Encounter magazine. Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. By 1982 Podhoretz was calling himself a neoconservative, in a New York Times Magazine article titled "The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy".

Prominent neoconservative periodicals are Commentary and The Weekly Standard. Neoconservatives are associated with foreign policy initiatives of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), The Heritage Foundation, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

Nowadays, "neoconservative" is used almost exclusively in the foreign policy sense.

He also needs to stop musing in front of presumed friendly audiences. That might be fine for a law professor, community activist, or even a state legislator but he's injured himself practically every time he's done that recently.

Oddly, John McCain, too, is his own worst enemy.