I really haven’t been able to understand the importance of his forcing Obama to release the long form birth certificate. In fact this whole birth certificate issue makes no sense when you consider that George Romney (Mitt’s father) was born in Mexico, lived there for 5 years, and was running against Nixon. There is also the issue of John McCain having been born in Panama. Here is a link exploring the constitutional legalities of the whole natural born issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html
But BOTH parents were US citizens.
Imam Ozero? Not so much.
I’m all for not allowing Romney or McCain on any ticket.
McCain's parents were American citizens and he inherited citizenship.
Let go back to 1916. Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican nominee, had a British subject for a father but had been born here. He was a citizen by jus soli and his mother's citizenship. However, Democrats raised the issue that he was not "Natural Born" because, like with Obama, the father was not a citizen at the time of the son's birth. Did he beat Wilson? No, so it was really a moot point and dropped.
If you wander back through our history, we consistently have elected presidents and vice-presidents who met both jus soli and jus sanguinis standards even with those having parents who themselves were originally foreign born. Chester A Arthur looks to be an exception based on a recently found archived document for his Irish father's naturalization. Only Chester's mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born. In his day the press were focused on whether Arthur'd been born in Canada or not. He lied, spoke half-truths and even destroyed documents. I do not know whether there were concerns about his father's later naturalization.
Why ask for the long form from Obama? The long form has more detail (hospital, doctor) than the CLB Obama had released before. People wanted to see the additional information because there had been so many claims and counterclaims. Obama refusing to release it made it appear as if he was trying to hide something. Some have questions about possible citizenship claims through his birth father as well as the adoption by the Indonesian Soetoro.
To honest, at 556 days from election day, I'm focused elsewhere. He's in there. We have one uncontrovertibly opportunity next year to throw him out. Heaven help us if he's reelected.
I would like to see eligibility bills in several states so future candidates can't play games on fundamental questions of qualification.
After reading about citizenship case law and reading the trend tea leaves, I'm of the opinion SCOTUS would say an anchor baby could be president and even a dual citizen could fit the "natural born" qualification. It's amazing how lax things are now.
On issues like this, they'd rather punt, leaving it to the voters, the Electoral College process and congressional certification.
While not where I'd set it, I believe SCOTUS would set the bar at excluding only naturalized citizens and non-citizens from the presidency.