Is there anybody that has so far announced or is expected to announce candidacy for '08 that could reasonably be considered a “neocon”?
For those who want to reflexively respond with “Define necocon”, here’s one definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative
If you don’t like that one feel free to provide your own.
FYI, I put this in GD, since it might be debatable whether a particular individual should be considered a neocon, but of course it’s mod’s choice where it belongs.
I’m curious, myself.
So I’ll bump this.
List of announced and potential Pub candidates (I think we can safely omit the Dems, even HRC, from this discussion; as well as all third-party and independent candiates):
AFAIK, and I could be wrong, McCain is the only one listed who appears to be seriously and openly committed to the neocon foreign-policy agenda.
Could Lieberman (who I do not think has expressed any interest in running in 08) be considered a Democrat neocon?
No, no…I’d call him a Republican.
Yeah, right. On every issue but the Iraq war, he’s a solid, down-the-line liberal, but you think he’s a Republican.
The only thing MORE ridiculous than your assertion is that a few Republicans actually buy into it!
Not to dispute Lieberman, who calls himself a Democrat now, but there is such a thing as a liberal Republican. They’re getting scarce as Yeti teeth, and usually calling themselves “moderate” as protective coloration, but they do still exist. I’m not sure if Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) of New Hartford, NY, is still in the House or has retired, but he was a classic Rockefeller liberal still in office in the past few years. Other liberal Republicans can be found in parts of the Northeast and upper Midwest here and there, if you will be vewy, vewy quiet and not spook them. 
Are we talking about the same guy? I’m thinking of the voucher-supporting, video-game-censoring Lieberman. I wouldn’t call him a DINO, but he’s far from a down-the-line liberal.
Like Hillary, he’s a Vichy Dem.
One of the things I think weird - and kinda troubling - is that the neocon agenda was largely formed essentially outside of public circles, by think tank types, essayists, and political appointees. While many of their “position papers” and such were made public, the advocates were primarily not elected officials answerable to the voting public.
This seems to have effectively shortcircuited some of the debate over its underlying principles and objectives that might have taken place in a more open setting.
Impressive, and again - kinda troubling - how much influence these non-elected individuals have had.
May not be a perfect comparison, but off the top of my head I’m thinking about the Clinton administration’s proposal to reform health care. ISTR that the intention to study and reform health care was publicly announced at an early date before any specific proposals were finalized, which allowed opponents to shoot it down at an early stage.
Actually the idea of “Government knows best” is an intrinsically liberal one in the United States. That’s why attempts to regulate explicit music and video games is quite appropriate behavior from the Dems, and we’ve seen it going back to the 1980s with Tipper Gore clashing with Twisted Sister.
Polycarp “moderate” Republicans are by no means rare. Keep in mind the overwhelming majority of elected Republicans in the United States are not part of the federal government. Throughout New England every State legislature has a decent proportion of Republicans, and New England Republicans have always been reasonably moderate. Some New England states even have/have had GOP Governors in recent years (some might right now, I’m not currently in the know on who is in office throughout New England.)
In strongly liberal states, there are still significant numbers of elected GOP officials, neither party is nearly as regional as it is portrayed come Presidential election time. In strongly liberal states the GOP politicians tend to be more moderate, in strongly conservative states, they tend to be more conservative–so to do the Democrats in said states.
I’m not sure where the idea came about that X states are “Democrat” states and X states are “Republican” states. In the United States both parties are incredibly decentralized and the breadth of views you will find within both parties is significant. When it comes to Presidential elections certain states are safe for the Dems and the GOP respectively, but even in those states at best the “safe” party still will draw usually less than 60% of the vote, showing there’s definitely not a one party state. Look at Texas for example, the Democratic party has always been strong in Texas despite Texas voting heavily Republican in most of the recent Presidential elections since the end the Jim Crow era.
But this is why identifying neoconservative politicians is generally fruitless, because there really aren’t any. Neoconservatism wasn’t a political movment, it was an intellectual movement. Neoconservatives weren’t elected officials, they were writers, pundits, advocates, advisors, magazine editors, and so forth.