Robert Kagan, neocon listened to by both presidential candidates

The top three - John McCain, William Kristol and Condoleezza Rice - are no great surprise.

But No. 4, Robert Kagan, deserves a closer look.

As Foreign Affairs points out, Kagan is one of the few intellectuals who has entry with both parties. He was an adviser to the McCain campaign in 2008. Now he is advising Mitt Romney while his wife, Victoria Nuland, is spokesperson for President Obama’s State Department.

After the New Republic published an essay in which Kagan disputed the “myth of American decline,” Obama cited him repeatedly.