How did Obama 180 on foreign policy?

More or less... his campaign was actually pretty cheap and he polled really high before he ever even entered the race.

Ross Perot was popular because he more or less played to the middle and the "common man."

Essentially he targeted Libretarians, balancing the budget, Union Democrats and the anti-free trade vote in general.

Clinton and Bush both being Free Trade at a time when everyone was afraid Japan was going to buy the country... part of stealing Perot's momentum was Clinton making some anti free trade promises he later disregarded.

He didn't really start spending his own money until after he reentered the race after he left because "Republicans had compromising pictures of his daughter and threatened to release them if he didn't drop out."

He actually thought spending money on advertising was a huge waste of time when he could just give interviews to tv shows.

"Evening up" foreign trade, balancing the budget, simplifying taxes.  These are all themes that both parties still pay lip service too because of how powerul those positions resonate.

Strengthening the war on drugs and electronic town hall voting on all issues i'm guessing haven't held up as well.

Seems that Perot ended up spending $26 of his own money in the first two weeks of October alone ($46 million as of Oct. 14). He also said he expected to spend $60 millions. Its also important to remember that election were much different back then (much less money). Just for reference, Clinton and Bush each accepted public funding and were limited to $55 million. Granted, they also had the parties raising money for them as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/24/us/1992-campaign-campaign-finances-despite-economy-clinton-sets-record-for-funds.html

I think this shows that Perot's viability was largely a product of his ability to spend money. I mean he single-handedly was able to outspend the public funding Clinton and Bush received. Finally, I want to emphasize that campaign spending has only increased since then. If Perot tried to run a campaign by spending $60 million today, he would likely be overshadowed by the big guns. Also, even with all that spending, Perot wasn't able to win any electoral votes even with 19% of the vote (kind of shows the importance of campaign strategy).

KInd of gives an idea of the increase campaign spending http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/totals.php?cycle=2008

You obviously haven't been paying attention.  I like how you're just making stuff up.

I think your using the term feasible (i mean possible/capable) differently from me. They might be statistical outliers(you are dealing with a very small sample size though), but that doesn't make them meaningless or inconsequential. I would also include the 1824 election in this discussion although its a bit more complicated.

Point is, they are outcomes that occur in the real world, and there is no reason to assume it cannot happen in this election. Statisically speaking, the winner of the popular vote and the electoral college are usually the same, but this is far from a necessary result. Essentially, and this has been my point all along, there is no causal connection between the popular vote and electoral victory, and I'll reiterate, this is why candidates focus on battleground states. They don't care about winning the popular vote because it doesn't determine electoral victory.

In all truthfulness, the fact that the popular vote and electoral victory usually coincide is nothing more than a statistical artifact and has zero explanatory power. You say you can predict 27/30 (don't know where 30 came from) electoral winners by using the popular vote. Well, I can predict 30/30 using the electoral college. Point is, why use the popular vote to determine the electoral winner when there is a much better method available, namely, using the electoral college, since, you know, the electoral college actually determines the winner? There's a reason why people are focusing on the polls in swing states rather than the national polls.

You are confusing terms, that is not what democratic means.  There is a big difference between a democracy and a republic, you should goggle it.  The US is a republic.

I posted straight from the site, dude. The polls are from the 24th. Stop being such a pedant, that's the information they have. I didn't DISCLUDE information, I included what they had.

Real Clear Politics isn't remotely conservative either. It assembles almost all the polls, which would sway it liberal if anything.

Swing state polls clearly show the same race since the first debate, which is momemtum for Romney. Any other notion is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

Your bias and obtuseness to facts is astouding. Keep dreaming.

First off, I do think calling someone obtuse is technically against the rules. 2ndly my main confidence against the popular vote comes from two university models that predict the presidency that both make aggregates of the polls to make a more accurate picture of the popular vote. Both methods were used to pick the last election within 1-2 % accuracy concerning the popular vote.The Princeton model was dead on.

Nate Silver: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Princeton: http://election.princeton.edu/2012/10/23/ro-mentum/

Now, the popular vote polls you mention are mostly from polls taken during times before 10/22/2012 the date of the final debate. In the next coming days, polls that only include days before the debate will come out. The final debate is believed to have little impact, yet it also appears any momentum Romney gained from the first debate has stopped after the last two debates.

In calling, Real Clear Politics conservative, I mean they are the most conservative in terms of giving states to any candidate. Therefore, it is often the one most cited by conservatives just as the gallop poll outliers are the polls most often mentioned by conservatives. If you dare to take a peak at even the fairly balanced CNN polls they are more liberal in calling states safe for each candidate and show a clear Obama advantage.

I don't think it's about the money, it's about the attitude.

Romney has the right attitude. The current administration is too soft.

All these dictatorships, China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, the Palestinians, and actually most members of the UN, won't thank America if America is soft and overly fair. You need to wear hard gloves against these type of nations. History never thanks the soft.

Obama betrayed Czech Republic and Poland by abandoning the European missile shield in his pathetic attempt to suck up to Russia, only to gain nothing in return.

Obama is too soft on illegal immigrants flooding the USA and if he wins he will implement a huge moratorium about illegals gaining US citizenship.

Obama tries to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program through negotiations, which is absolutely laughable when not even sanctions would work. War is the only option.

The current administration has been embarrasingly passive on Syria.

And Obama's strategy of offering food to North Korea in exchange for collaboration with the IAEA hasn't worked (The Koreans have just lengthened their program, realizing how benficial it is). Romney has promised to punish North Korea if they don't stop their missile program.

Romney is a stronger friend of Israel than the Democrats. He supports a stronger Israeli position in negotiations with Palestinians and he supports strong American backup for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilites. We can't wait when it comes to Iran. North Korea aquiring nukes taught us we can't wait.

I also believe it's too early to withdraw from Iraq (and Afghanistan too for that matter). Chaos will follow.

I chose 30 to represent common era.  It was somewhat arbitrary. Could be expanded or contracted. 30 out of 56 elections isn't a small sample size when polling services' sample sizes are about 1000 people out of 300 million. THAT's a small sample.

1824 I didn't include because it was decided by the House.

If your argument is that it is possible to win the popular and lose the electoral, then I agree. That's indisputable. If that was your only point, why didn't you say so instead of continuing with this idea that the popular vote isn't a determination of anything?

"why use the popular vote to determine the electoral winner when there is a much better method available, namely, using the electoral college"

True enough, but I would argue that it's easier to poll nationally than electorally.

Because it isn't a determinant of anything. The electoral college, not the popular vote, determines the winner. That's been my point all along, and I've been consistent with that argument. This was my whole point about causal and explanatory power. If you are determining what causes electoral victory, it is not the popular vote.