Surely McCain should be considered a natural born citizen even if he was born in Panama. It strikes me as silly to say someone is not a citizen at birth merely because their parents were outside the country at time of birth, especially if they were on official duties for the government, as McCains parents were. I find it hard to believe that anyone would argue McCain is ineligible because hes not a natural born citizen. In any case, thats a terrible reason to persist with a fight over Obamas citizenship status.
My understanding is that “natural born citizen” means “citizen at birth”. McCain surely passes this test. I think Obama does too, because his mother was a citizen at the time of his birth.
Certainly some clarity from the SCOTUS would be helpful here. All this discussion about where a person was born doesnt seem very relevant anyway (except in a legalistic sense). Whats really important is where a person grew up and spent most of their time. A person can be a natural born citizen, but what if they spent almost their entire life living elsewhere, say Iran, and dont know much about life in the US? Imagine this: POTUS is born in the US to citizen parents, who then moves to Iran, where the future POTUS lives until he is 35, at which time he runs for president and wins. But it OK because the constitution only requires that he be a “natural born citizen”.
This is all about "legalistic" because what constitutes a "natural born citizen" is a legal question. And it doesn't matter if the answer (whatever it is) "sounds silly" to some. If it "sounds silly" to enough people, then they can go to Congress and amend the Constitution or get other "anti-silly relief." But the Constitution established (without defining) a standard and that standard must, somehow, be upheld.
As for your example above, that is nowhere near what is at issue here. IF--which is what the present case is about, it's about IF the candidates were natural born citizens---but IF a person was, in fact, a natural born citizen, lived in Iran all his life, came here and ran for prez, that is not a question of eligibility. (Because, in your example, we are assuming the person is without question a "natural born citizen.")
That person would indeed be eligible to run and any concern about his loyalty to this nation would have to be expressed at the ballot box.
Just because someone is a "natural born citizen" doesn't mean people have to vote for him.
But if someone is not a "natural born citizen," he is not eligible to serve even if people do vote for him.