Citizenship of parents at the time of a candidate’s birth do matter in regards to “natural born” citizenship status (in contrast to the other two classifications, citizen, and naturalized citizen) uniquely designed for the presidency.
He’s the first candidate with one parent as a foreign national, his father, and thus was born with dual citizenship. All of this neatly verified on Obama’s own websites, fightthesmears.com and factcheck.org
Past presidents had foreign parents, but became naturalized U.S. citizens upon the candidates birth.
The framers wanted to limit the presidency to at least second-generation — fearful of usurpers, they wanted one’s allegiance solely to the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has historically defined natural born citizen with case precedent.
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark’s importance is that it is the first case decided by the Supreme Court that attempts to explain the meaning of “natural born citizen” under Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Natural born citizen is similiar to the meaning of what a natural born subject is under Common Law in England. That is one of the reasons why the framers specifically included a grandfather clause (natural born Citizen OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution). The founding fathers knew that in order to be president, they had to grandfather themselves in because they were British subjects. If they didn’t, they could not be President of the U.S.
Perkins v. Elg’s importance is that it actually gives examples of what a Citizen of the U.S. is; what a native born American Citizen is; and what a natural born citizen of the U.S. is. A natural born citizen is a person who is born of two U.S. citizen parents AND born in the mainland of U.S.
Congress for 26 times has tried to change the meaning of natural born citizen as early as the 1790 Nationality Act and 26 times the bill has been defeated, repealed or ruled unconstitutional. The meaning of what natural born citizen is what it is.
Furthermore for the 14th Amendment fanatics:
Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, confirms the understanding and construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:
” ... 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 [plural, meaning two] not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen...”