The Obama Precedent would seem to make Cruz a natural born citizen (i.e. a citizen as a result of being born to a US citizen). However the strategy of the left will no doubt be to flog the issue next year to try to peel off enough hardline “birthers” to swing the election to their side.
Menuehune56, precedent is not binding. It is a device, similar to mathematicians who use lemmas or previoiusly proved theorems to construct a proof of what they are asserting. It is a convenience without which advanced mathematics would be next to impossible. (I will never forget a good friend who wrote his mathematics thesis, taking four years and hundreds of pages of deep thinking, to have someone find a counterexample to a previously published theorem upon which my friend’s thesis was constructed.)
Just look at the list of prominent Republicans proposed to oppose Hillary, Jindal, Rubio, Cruz, Haley. Do you think its coincidental that all are naturalized citizens, as Barack honestly described his own class of citizenship? Hillary has lots of baggage, but any Democrat can demand that the already stacked Supreme Court (Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and the other liberals) confirm the definition of natural born citizens. Ironically, the court only needs to confirm the definition used in a dozen or so decisions, confirm the precedent asserted by Minor v. Happersett. Democrats can dismiss any of the naturalized citizens being promoted by the Carl Rove contingent of the Republican party by confirming the Constitution’s requirement that the President be a natural born citizen. As Madison explained, the terms used in the Constitution are not defined there because the meanings of words change over time. Madison explained that terms must be interpreted as understood its framers, using terms as understood at the time of its writing.
John Poedesta’s Center for American Progress edited during the Summer of 2008, published reproductions of over twenty five Supreme Court cases with citations to Minor v. Happersett on the most popular free legal web site Justia .com. Justia is Google’s choice using Google’s software in the Summer of 2008. (Jusia.com’s CEO admitted the corruption of at least twenty five cases but claimed it was a programming error, and returned the cases to their original form after Obama was elected, and blocked access to Google Archives so most couldn’t confirm what they had done). The “Progressives” are very well organized, demonstrating how thoroughly and skillfully they will control the tyranny they are achieving, permitting only the freedoms that conform to their preferred form of government. The new “Bill of Rights” will probably follow after they have completed their coup.
I think the Obama Precedent indicates that US citizenship is not a qualifier.