What do they think "socialism" is anyway?

A new poll by Research2000 of 2,000 self-identified Republicans reveals that 63 percent think President Obama is a Socialist.
Which begs the question - What on Earth do these people think a "socialist" is anway? I would be interested to find out, because I don't think they have a clue.
Socialism is an economic system where the government owns the means of production.
Recently, as a result of the grossly negligent and wrongheaded Republican policies of the George W. Bush administration, the federal government was forced to invest considerable sums of taxpayer dollars into the banking and automotive industries to keep them from collapsing and throwing the whole country into a second Great Depression.
Now the government is trying to recoup its money and get back out of the bailout business as quickly as possible. To call this arrangement - where the government is forced to take extraordinary measures to prop up a capitalist system - "socialism" is astoundingly ignorant.
And yet that is the claim that has been made consistently on Faux News and Rightwing Radio in an effort to tar Obama with the "socialist' label.
But I think a lot of the people on the right don't stop there. They have been throwing around the "socialist" charge long before the Bush/Republican economic collapse of 2008/09. I dare say many of them would label as "socialist" anyone who supports Social Security and/or Medicare. Anyone who supports a progressive tax system and any domestic/social spending by the government.
Apparently, as far as these people are concerned, the United States has been a "socialist" country since Roosevelt's New Deal pulled us out of the first Republican-caused Great Depression.
And so did this sharp turn towards "socialism" result in an economic catastrophe for our nation as they predict? Why no. Instead, our economy grew so rapidly that we became the most powerful nation on the planet - all under what they deem to be a socialist system.
Idiots.