Rubio campaigns with Romney, raising VP speculation

Romney is running neck-and-neck with Obama in national opinion polls but needs to make up ground in several battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.

The former Massachusetts governor appeared side-by-side with Rubio at a news conference where Romney did most of the talking. They then held a town hall event and took turns answering questions from supporters.

Romney brushed off two questions from reporters whether Rubio was on his list for potential vice presidential picks, a process that will play out over the next four months ahead of the Republicans' August convention in Florida to nominate their candidate to face Obama in the November 6 election.

"The process for selecting a vice presidential running mate is just beginning," Romney said.

He noted that longtime aide Beth Myers has begun to put together a system for checking out possible nominees and reviewing tax returns and other background material, "but we really haven't had a discussion yet of putting together a list or evaluating various candidates."

Rubio, 40, has lately sounded coy about the idea of a vice presidential nod after ruling it out repeatedly in the past. Conservatives speak warmly of the idea and Romney advisers say he will be considered, but some Republicans voice worries he may simply be too young for the job.

Rubio, asked whether he had the experience necessary to serve as vice president, would not comment. "I'm not talking about that process any more," he said.

Obama leads Romney among Hispanic voters by a whopping 40 percentage points, putting pressure on Romney to take steps to reduce that margin and make himself more competitive in states where the Latino vote could be decisive, like New Mexico and Nevada.

"He was born a citizen according to U.S. law - which should always reflect our best understanding of natural law."

Exactly allmendream. “He was born a citizen.” He was not born a natural citizen. Rubio, like Obama if we assume he was born in Hawaii, is ‘native-born’, like American Indians, who were native-born and not citizens but residents. Rubio was made a citizen by the 14th Amendment, which is based upon Article I Section 8, the command to Congress to create a “uniform rule for Naturalization.” A rule for “Naturalization” does not creat natural born citizens, but 'naturalized citizens!"

What is not natural about such citizens, a notion from ‘natural law’, is that they inherit the allegiances of their parents, which may be entirely opposed to the principles for which our founders fought. That is obviously the case with Barack. Don't forget, the only reason the Constitution mentions the phrase natural born citizen is to specify the requirement for just one of our citizens, the citizen who will honor, defend, and protect the Constitution. Otherwise, there is no phrase to specify the requrements for citizenship in the Constitution. Citizenship requirements were specific to each colonial state, and were to be made uniform by Congress.

Congressman John Binghum, the author and sponsor of the Naturalization amendment that made Obama and Rubio ciitzens, told the house while explaining his amendment prior to its passage from the Congress for ratification in three fourths of the states:

I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…

Rubio was naturalized, as eventually were his parents. His was ‘jus soli’ naturalization based upon the 14th Amendmendment, which uses the unfortunate term “Native-born citizen of the US,” the exact term used by Barack Obama on his web site fightthesmears.com. You are correct about two classes of citizen, natural born and naturalized. Naturalized citizens become citizens under law, such as the 14th Amendment; natural citizens are citizens based upon natural law, the guiding foundation according to our Declaration of Indpendence. And what is a natural born citizen? There are dozens of citations from legal scholars around the time our framers and founders were alive, but the most cited, by far, including frequently in Supreme Court decisions, and our first law book, as assigned by Thomas Jefferson, at our first law school, William and Mary in 1779, was Vattel’s ‘Law of Nations’, an exposition of ‘nature's law’.

Through the turn of the twentieth century no one doubted the common definition of what was a natural born citizen. That is what Chief Justice Waite told us, and the rest of the justices agreed. Even in 1939, Chief Justice Hughes didn't question Marie Elg’s natural born citizenship, even though she was raised by her parents in Sweden when her dad repudiated his US naturalization because he found a good job in Sweden. She couldn't be denied citizenship, though our State Department argued otherwise, because her's was natural born citizenship, granted by nature, not men.

The term natural born citizen appears nowhere in the 14th Amendment. The attempt to conflate natural born and native born using Wong Kim Ark, which is based upon the 14th Amendment, is logical and legal nonsense - which doesn't mean that the court won't do it if forced to reinterpret natural born citizenship. We are seeing politicians chafing under the constraints imposed upon government by our Constitution, both Democrats and Republicans, both bodies becoming wealthy parasites upon the productivity of free men. They are killing the host by devaluing the Constitution written to protect those individuals who are now, unwillingly, supporting Washington D.C.'s growing wealth as government, its employee salaries, and benefits, exceeds twice the national average. Obama, with no allegiance inherited from his parents, is an ideal choice, unless people realize that we have protections. Allegiance is difficult for many to grasp, particularly as we welcome citizens whose clearly stated objective is to turn US citizen into subjets of the Caliphate, into our defense and justice departments.

Thank you for your well written and well documented explanations. We seem to have a few different flavors of posts on Free Republic supporting Obama’s eligibility. First there are the out and out Alinskyites using nothing but ridicule. Most are eventually found to be nothing but trolls from DU just trying to stir up trouble for their own amusement.

At some level anyone who has studied the constitution even if only in middle school... knows the truth of what the framers intended when they specified that the president must be a natural born citizen. I don't really even need to specify because at a gut level we all know that their intention was to protect the Republic from malevolent foreign influence. Those born with a parent with foreign allegiance are the ones that the framers intended to exclude. It is not rocket science... it is common sense.

It is both laughable and disturbing that someone could actually believe that the framers could have intended that Adolph Hitler's progeny would have been eligible to be our president even if Eva Braun had given birth to him within our borders and even if she were an underage Nazi girl who was a US citizen. This is the height of intellectual dishonesty. Yet we see it argued over and over and over in this forum... all to protect a president whose actions have demonstrated repeatedly that he puts foreign interests ahead of the interests of our own country.

I don't care how elaborately they construct their legalese arguments... it is all wrong and everyone who is a patriot knows at their very core that it is all wrong. Why do these people continue to spew out this trash? Why do the rest of us put up with it? The Alinskyites especially deserve to be grabbed by the ear and kicked in their asses on their way out.

I believe and assume that others who are silent understand what you are saying fireman15. It doesn't take many Obama operatives to appear to be numerous on Free Republic. Some of us have seen their seminar misdirection for almost four years now, but I believe many have begun to understand the truth. Most people haven't the time to find the original sources and read enough to become confident. The Obots are relatively well-informed. They have been prepared. Several that have been exposed work in Obama’s Justice Department, and at least one is from Eric Holder's former law firm.

Those who identify with the left are not ignorant. They hold most citizens in disdain. For many of them, confusing people is sport. They, along with their teleprompter-driven tool, Barack, consider the Constitution an unwanted constraint. Since few are successful entrepreneurs, they take advantage of the inherent vulnerability of a society which members aren't subjects of a tangible monarch. One of our presidents before we had a Constitution, Dr. David Ramsay explained why we are not subjects, and do not observe British common law, in 1779:

“The difference is immense. Subject is derived from the latin words, sub and jacio, and means one who is under the power of another; but a citizen is an unit of a mass of free people, who collectively, possesses sovereignty.”

“Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others. Each citizen of a free state contains, within himself, by nature and the constitution, as much of the common sovereignty as another. In the eye of reason and philosophy, the political condition of citizens is more exalted than that of noblemen. Dukes and earls are the creatures of kings, and may be made by them at pleasure: but citizens possess in their own right original sovereignty.”

Our continued efforts to inform are having an impact. Many on FR recognize the tactics, even when the Obots change their names. Membership dates help. The older Obots are now too well known to have the impact they once did. But education is the antidote. Like any topic, having a problem to solve makes probing the mass of sources easier. It opens up the two hundred thirty years since the ratification. When people are vulnerable to the implication that there is no definition in the Constitution for natural born citizens, when the Constitution explicitly does not contain definitions, the cleverness of the professional confidence men now controlling the Executive branch is exposed.

Few connect the fact that a liberal activist, whose desire for a Supreme Court appointment was dashed by his being caught plagiarizing a recent book, was Obama's adviser at Harvard, constitutional law professor, and on Obama's campaign committee - Larry Tribe. Larry's potential legal problems were smothered by Elena Kagan. Obfuscation of Obama's ineligibility was likely engineered by Larry and Elena. Look who was made solicitor general, responsible for presenting or preventing cases from reaching the court - Kagan. Look who wouldn't recuse herself when cases from Donofrio and Apuzzo were selected for hearing - Kagan, now Justice Kagan. We are vulnerable because so few of us know anything about our history. But we are leaning quickly!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.