I realize that admitting you are a socialist in America is only slightly worse than admitting you are a child molester, but perhaps if people would actually define it like that it might sound a little less ominous.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend earlier talking about the fact that when you are young you tend to think that the reality you know is permanent and that social progress can never be reversed. Here's a little example of how that isn't true. The words "socialist" and "communist" were epithets when I was young, for sure. But after the fall of the Soviet Empire I think we all thought that they would no longer be useful or that people would even understand what they meant anymore. That hasn't turned out to be true, has it? Nobody used it much for 20 years but ever since Obama was elected, it's been as if Kruschev pounded on the desk with his shoe just yesterday. It's the damnedest thing. And I'm fairly sure it's just a vague meme, with no real meaning for most of the people who use it. It was just there lurking in the subconscious waiting to be put to use again whenever they needed it.
Update:This piece by RJ Eskow explains why Obama isn't actually a socialist --- and why that's too bad.