I agree with your analysis up to the point at which you assert that the parents have to have been citizens at the time of birth of the person in question. As I read the Constitution and the Minor case, one can argue that if the person was born in the US and the parents became US citizens prior to the moment when the citizenship of the child has to be determined, then the child is a natural born citizen: In other words, the status of a child can change from “citizen” to “natural born citizen” after he is born, when his parents become US citizens.
As I wrote elsewhere, I just thought of this analysis and have not seen it elsewhere, and perhaps there is other case law (or something in Vattell or elsewhere) that discredits it, but I don’t find it inconsistent with either the constitution or the Minor case to say that one can become a natural born citizen if (a) he is born in the US and (b) his parents later became US citizens.
I can understand your view of this, though I disagree with it. Your view stems from the fact that the words of the decision in the Minor case leave a hole that one can drive your interpretation through with ease. However, I would ask you to consider that the phrase "Natural Born Citizen" refers (IMHO) to one's status AT THE MOMENT OF BIRTH, and not later based on the actions of another person or persons. It would be (again, IMHO) logically absurd to have such a status be subject to change (similar to the logical absurdity of being "a little pregnant") - IOW, I view NBC status as either being the case or not, and once that matter is determined it holds forever.
Our disagreement would need to be decided by the Supreme Court, given the flaw (perhaps intentional?) in the way that Minor was written...provided that the federal courts even give anyone jurisdiction to litigate the matter.
And a worm can become a butterfly, wow!
All this band width being consumed to try and put our non-NBC guy on the ticket, because they put their non-NBC guy on the ticket. Of course our non-NBC guy is much better than theirs. Cool.