I do think the parents’ citizenship trumps birthplace.
***It’s a bit of a grey area, which is why we keep seeing trolls posting that McCain might be ineligible, even though he was born of 2 citizens who were expats on official country business. But it’s just an academic exercise, I don’t really care because McCain didn’t win the election.
I think even McCain’s situation needs to be settled by the Court (though, since he didn’t win, it could be considered moot).
I don’t doubt that McCain would be determined eligible, but I don’t think we have a settled rationale for that.
Certainly, if McCain is an American because he was born to two Americans, regardless of the place of his birth, that would militate for the holding that “natural born citizen” status is attained by operation of “nature” (that is, by descent; some in the framers’ time may have said “by natural law”)-—as opposed to by operation of law.
No legal authority in history ever had to declare that a child born to two citizens of a country was, by descent, a citizen of that country. It just was.
If, then, “natural born citizen” status is attained by nature (descent) for McCain, regardless of place of birth, the same standard applies to Obama. Since his father was not an American, and therefore Obama could not naturally attain American citizenship by descent from his father, the only question would be whether the law at the time allowed him to naturally attain American citizenship only from his mother.
The Senate resolution on McCain’s eligiblity, including the provision supposedly inserted by Obama, functions on the premise that “natural born citizen” status is, in fact, attained by operation of nature (descent), not law-—and that place of birth is irrelevant to attaining that status.
Therefore, Obama himself has recognized this principle and thus would have to bank on the fact that natural born citizenship status was naturally attainable by descent from his mother. Which is not at all clear at this point.