Beyond foreign policy, things get a bit fuzzy with large variations regarding the kinds of social issues that energize many actual conservatives.
In fact, neoconservatives usually avoid discussing abortion, immigration, gay marriage, race, and the proper place for religion in a civil society because they find themselves on the progressive side of the argument. They are also light on the ground when it comes to constitutionalism and civil liberties, concerns of traditional conservatives, preferring instead to back the warfare state coupled with a unitary executive, which frees up the president to exercise the military option in international relations.This ambivalence is because, as it has been observed, many neoconservatives are former leftists or even radicals who have by their own account “been mugged by reality,” leading to a gradual shift away from the Scoop Jackson Democratic nest where many of them were nurtured to the Republicanism of Ronald Reagan, where they focused more practically on obtaining positions in the Pentagon. Many eventually supported John McCain before gravitating to the George W. Bush administration, where some of them found senior-level government positions in both the White House and Defense Department.
Neoconservatives largely mix with other neoconservatives, which means that they operate with considerable internal cohesion, but that does not fully explain their success in selling a product that has begun to smell very bad if one judges by results rather than marketing. But perhaps the answer lies in understanding how the bubble around Washington works, which the neoconservatives have mastered. They are particularly adept at resume building within their clique, understanding full well that a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies is more likely to find space on a friendly editorial page than someone without that cachet who has a large audience on the alternative media, particularly if that someone is diverging from status quo policies or staking out a position that differs substantially from foreign-policy groupthink. Their ability to seek out and build relationships with friends in the mainstream media, which the Guardian describes as “extraordinary,” has significantly contributed to their success. In 2002 alone the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC spin-off, by itself placed 90 op-eds in the mainstream media. They also enjoy, for the same reason, unchallenged access to government committees and advisory commissions.
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http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-neoconservative-cursus-honorum/
