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Not to discourage anyone from self-education, but you're not going to learn much that will help you in practical terms. You can learn a lot about political history by tracing the evolution of this basic terminology, but honestly it won't help in discussions here or anywhere else. For instance, people have a hard time deciding if libertarians are off the deep end as liberals or conservatives. Everybody's got their own idea of what "liberal", "conservative", "neo-con", etc. means and what those groups believe. So basically they are only useful in the broadest of ways - you can't really convey or perceive any nuance from their use. And that doesn't even begin to consider the scope of individual belief and variation within those groups.
My advice for a summer project: commit to reading every story in the International, National, and Washington sections of the NY Times every day all summer. Also start reading biographies of presidents. It'll take a while (because reading the stories requires the very knowledge you are trying to gain, so it's a bit of a boot-strap problem), but you'll be on decently firm footing by Fall, in time for the bulk of the November election madness.
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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
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