Stepan12, your mother and father needed only to be a citizens when you were born, naturalized, native-born, or natural born, and you to be born on sovereign soil. Will you be a candidate?
When someone tries to address the possible extensions to who is natural born, questions quickly arise. Article II Section 1 clearly eliminates many who could make fine presidents, but, since the majority of people are natural born, while it isn't a perfect rule, it seres the purpose of limiting the number of those with clear potential to be enemies of the state. Many attempts to amend Article II Section 1 have failed, and probably for good, or for understandable political reasons.
Just as it was politically expedient to promote McCain from citizen to natural born citizen for Obama’s election, many attempts at amending Article II were to promote an individual whom the opposite party saw no reason to support, such as Orren Hatch’s amendment attempt to make Schwarzenegger eligible. The two attempts by :John Conyers may have been intended to make Obama eligible. There were five other amendments to change Article II Section 1 between 2000 and 2007. The bill sponsored by Obama and his campaign chair, Clare McCaskill, in February 2008, "A Bill to Insure That Foreign Born Children of Military Citizens is Eligible to the Presidency," SB2678, could have become an amendment, but there wasn't time before the election, and McCain's campaign would have been stymied. Clare, Barack and Axelrod certainly knew that, so this bill was just for talking points. Everyone knew of McCain's ineligibility, since this bill and SR511 spelled it out. They also knew about Obama, since the hearings for both SB2678 and SR511 made "born to two parents who were citizens" the core of their legal argument.
Since natural born citizenship is only required of our president, and since citizens who immigrated or whose parents intended to immigrate have a special understanding of our freedoms, they may be especially useful in the State Department or Defense. Obama is the perfect example of the wisdom of Articel II Section 1; remarkably, he told us as much. Barack told us on Fightthesmears.com that he was “...born a subject of the British Commonwealth”, and called himself, correctly, “A native-born citizen of the US,” which is the language of the 14th Amendment for a jus soli citizen, like Wong Kim Ark, born on our soil of parents who were not both citizens. Barack was careful and legally inscrutable. He knew that the media would help to confuse citizens over the settled, but labyrithine citizenship law. Barack famously explained that he didn't feel bound by the negative principles expounded by the Constitution.
Well put as always Spaulding!
After all the suffering of America's Blacks, it is unconscionable that the first person of African descent to be President is part native Kenyan and part native white American. The first such President should have come from a native American Black family, not from the union of two people neither of whom come from American Black culture or tradition. Enforcing the NBC constraint would have prevented that travesty.
No disrespect intended to native Kenyans, but no native African can really speak for native Black Americans, regardless of skin color or historical ethnicity. The centuries of history of American Blacks in the US have created a new culture and a new ethnicity to which native Africans have never, ever belonged.
Of whom Obama is a case in point. All the good ones who can't become President are justified to keep us from having a President such as Obama who obviously does not have allegiance nor natural born love for our Country and may well be a communistic, big government plant.