if they did they would know that anyone presenting true socialist policy wouldn't be on the top of a major presidential ticket.
Huh? Why would that be impossible? The Democratic Party and the liberal Republicans have been foisting creeping Socialism for decades, and it's been ramped up heavily in the last 15 years. They very cornerstone of Socialist policy is a redistribution of wealth, and massive government programs and progressive taxation are vehicles to that end. The latest huge effort to socialize 10% of the US's GDP is Universal Health Care, and guess who's pushing for it? Obama is a Socialist.

Calling Obama socialist is no different than me calling McCain racist for voting against the MLKing holiday, highly misconstrued and very misleading.
Huh? Again? I have clearly fortified my argument by displaying Obama's strident Socialism. His entire platform is Socialist. Can you name a policy of his which shrinks government, and doesn't require heavier funding from those of higher classes? No? Then you fail at establishing that Obama is not a Socialist.

By the way, name one policy of Obama's that mentions:

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
Universal Health Care. Ownership, btw, implies Communism. I have no doubt that would follow Socialism, as it always does when Socialism fails, but for now, we're speaking of Socialism, and not Communism. Administration, however, simply requires massive government oversight of social issues. Obama is looking to massively expand government power in this regard, with no more egregious example than Universal Health Care.

2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
Again: Universal Health Care. And Social Security. And Public Education. Post Office. Any Massive Government Agency is guilty of fitting this definition. Keep in mind that Socialism, according to Karl Marx, is the period of transition between Capitalism and Communism, and requires class struggle to complete the shift. How do classes struggle? By endorsing policy which pits one class against another. Obama's entire existence is based around the idea of rallying low and middle class people without economic understanding or moral fiscal principle to the idea that upper classes do not deserve to keep as high a percentage of their money as low and middle classes do. By promising to raise taxes on corporations and upper classes and by promising a service like health care be provided and administered through the government, Obama is defining the transition we know as Socialism.

And that just scratches the surface. Obama wants all sorts of government largesse for lower classes, at the forced expense of everyone else. Such a move is very damaging to an economy, and particularly so if the economy is in a down cycle, and fragile, as ours is now.