I heard Laura Ingraham call Obama a Marxist yesterday morning on her radio show.
> Are the people sending this a lunatic fringe or has this idea gained
> traction among non-lunatics?
You'll have to judge lunatic fringe on your own terms, but it is very common for Limbaugh, Hannity, Hugh Hewit, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Michael Savage to refer Obama as a socialist. Marxist is less common except for Savage who constantly calls him a Marxist (as is Ted Kennedy, Hillary and Bill, etc.)
> I ask because I have been receiving quite a bit of this crap lately, more
> than I would expect if the idea was only far right-wing nuttery.
I listen to 5-7 hours of the above assholes per week during my commute when the dulcet tones of NPR get too earnest or sonorous or when Pacifica gets, well, too Pacifica. I've been listening to them for about 20 years or as long as they've been on the radio in Houston (if they haven't been on 20 years in Hou) and there is nothing new about calling even conservative democrats socialists. Texas being what it is, we have some local talent on the radio that make the above named sound like wimpy liberals, and they use the M-word more frequently.
Oh, most of their callers are, of course, in lock-step with this usage of the words. But then, they think "liberal democrat" is one word just like "damn yankee". Seriously.