McCain eligibility in question?

[Simon_Cowbell]

http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/mccains-birthplace-raises-questions/20080228093909990001

Who will be his veep? Arnold?

 

[Ace]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?


I can't think of any place more American than the Panama Canal Zone.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Please...

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

I can't think of any place more American than the Panama Canal Zone.

How about The Green Zone in Baghdad?

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Please...

Please?

All of us were brought up with this as one of those facts.... death, taxes and if you weren't born in this country you can't be president.

 

[Ace]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

I can't think of any place more American than the Panama Canal Zone.

How about The Green Zone in Baghdad?

Yeah, well, that too.

 

[Ace]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Please...

Please?

All of us were brought up with this as one of those facts.... death, taxes and if you weren't born in this country you can't be president.

As long as McCain doesn't look or sound Panamanian or wear one of those jaunty hats, I got no problem.

 

[bigpern23]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

I'm firewalled out of AOL sites. Anyone wanna give us the highlights?

 

[spnited]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

No Simon, not "if you weren't born in this country." If you arenlt a natural born citizen .. as in the child of two US citizens, born on a US military base...anywhere in the damn world.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

From AOL:

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

No Simon, not "if you weren't born in this country." If you arenlt a natural born citizen .. as in the child of two US citizens, born on a US military base...anywhere in the damn world.

If my wife and I had a child in Windsor, Canada, there would be no restriction?

 

[Beaker]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

I certainly don't support McCain, but he's an American who just happened to be be born on an American military base outside the country. To me, that's not a big deal. Yes, maybe "natural born" has never been defined, but the guy is an American.

 

[spnited]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

No Simon, not "if you weren't born in this country." If you arenlt a natural born citizen .. as in the child of two US citizens, born on a US military base...anywhere in the damn world.

If my wife and I had a child in Windsor, Canada, there would be no restriction?

That would be correct...unless the kid renounces his US Citizenship to become a Canuckistani

 

[Armchair_QB]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Please...

Please?

All of us were brought up with this as one of those facts.... death, taxes and if you weren't born in this country you can't be president.

Wrong. If you aren't born a citizen of this country you can't be president. Last time I checked McCain has never been a citizen of Panama.

 

[markvid]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

No Simon, not "if you weren't born in this country." If you arenlt a natural born citizen .. as in the child of two US citizens, born on a US military base...anywhere in the damn world.

If my wife and I had a child in Windsor, Canada, there would be no restriction?

Unless the child went to experience the Windsor Ballet.

 

[bigpern23]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Hmm ... interesting debate.

Say a couple gets pregnant and decides to marry. They go on their honeymoon to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls in her seventh month and she goes into labor prematurely. The child is born on the Canadian side. I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that child is ineligible to run for President.

My gut says, if both parents are American-born citizens and the child is born outside our borders, he or she should still be eligible.

If one or both parents were born outside the country and became naturalized citizens, but had the child outside the U.S., he or she would not be eligible.


Oh ... and if McCain was born on an American base, that's American territory, as far as I'm concerned and this whole argument is moot.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

This is the best the DNC can come up with? They're really slipping.

 

[Stoney]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Please...

Please?

All of us were brought up with this as one of those facts.... death, taxes and if you weren't born in this country you can't be president.

That's nonsense. The only constitutional requirement is "natural born citizenship", meaning you obtained citizenship through birth, which people born to American citizen parents on overseas bases undisputably do. The only people excluded are those like who obtained citizenship by naturalization years after birth (like Schwarzeneggar), and even that's a dumb antiquated requirement. This is a silly non-issue.

 

[Beaker]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Agreed, pern. I supose their could be more of an argument in the circumstances you mention, but as you say, an American military base is American territory, which makes this whole thing pointless.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

Re: How is McCain even eligible to run for President?

Hmm ... interesting debate.

Say a couple gets pregnant and decides to marry. They go on their honeymoon to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls in her seventh month and she goes into labor prematurely. The child is born on the Canadian side. I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that child is ineligible to run for President.

My gut says, if both parents are American-born citizens and the child is born outside our borders, he or she should still be eligible.

If one or both parents were born outside the country and became naturalized citizens, but had the child outside the U.S., he or she would not be eligible.


Oh ... and if McCain was born on an American base, that's American territory, as far as I'm concerned and this whole argument is moot.

Well, this moron learned something new today.

Why I love this site and you numb chucks!