In the months prior to the US Republican National Convention, the common wisdom was that the highwater mark of "neoconservatism" had come and gone. Not that many people had a very clear idea what neoconservatism was in the first place, besides its being right-wing, disturbingly self-confident, in some way Jewish-influenced and generally anathema to the West's chattering classes.

Neoconservatives were widely but fuzzily blamed for the disintegration of Keynesian economics, the retreat from consensus welfarism, overseas adventures and other phenomena associated with the crisis of the post-WWII Western left. The accusation of being a "neo-con" became a standard and reliably thoughtless dismissal of opinions offensive to distressed leftists who knew their world was falling apart and their ideas no longer commanded election-winning support, who also suspected that sinister forces were somehow to blame (those Jews again), but otherwise had no understanding of how to cope with modern realities.

In his address to the US electorate on the last night of the convention, President George W. Bush made it clear to everyone with the ability to decode the language of modern Western politics that a second Bush term would be a neoconservative administration, just as the first one has been. It is worthwhile, therefore, for anyone harbouring doubts about John F. Kerry's political abilities, to try and understand what neoconservatism actually is.

The first "neoconservatives" were disillusioned leftists who had lost confidence in the practical efficacy of the policies they had previously supported, after witnessing the perverse effects of welfarist "compassion". They described themselves as "liberals (in the modern US sense - that is, leftists) who have been mugged by reality." Rather than achieving egalitarian social goals, the "hand-out" mentality predominating across the political spectrum had actually entrenched poverty, destroying work-incentives, independence and family structures, spawning more severe problems than it was solving. Even the left itself was beginning to admit that merely "throwing money" at social problems rarely contributed substantially to eliminating them, with both President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair exhibiting significant neoconservative traits (even if they would face torture rather than admit the fact).

Unlike classical liberals, however, the "neo-cons" did not disparage the role of the State or turn to the market mechanism for all their solutions. The "downsize government" movement launched by Newt Gingrich's political insurgency during the 1990s, for instance - with its Thatcherite and Reaganite roots - had little in common with the "compassionate conservatism" of President George W. Bush, who seems to have rarely seen a government programme he wouldn't like if re-directed to conservative ends.

The exploding budget deficits of Bush's first term, striking horror into the hearts of classical liberals, "neoliberals" and libertarians, has been greeted with a shrug by the new generation of neoconservatives.

Neoconservatives are idealists (or do-gooders, according to taste) who are happy to mobilize the powers of government both at home and abroad to realize moral goals. Their left-wing opponents accuse them of arrogant preaching, while their right-wing opponents are infuriated by their big-government extravagance. If Bush romps home in November, expect the sound and fury to continue.

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