[Jim W N]

Any debate - whether over understanding or definition - will have to address the purpose of including the class of ordinary "citizen" in the sentence that introduces NBC.

Agreed. The point was our Founders wanted people who would have been "Americanized" and loyal or taught loyalty from the start.

Remember, many early Americans spent time abroad and had children while they were abroad. But AFAIK, those children born abroad to American citizens were considered NBC.

Upon ratification, there were citizens who were not born in America and/or were not born to American citizens abroad.

So, again, if Ramaswamy was born on U.S. soil and his parents were here legally, he may very well be considered an NBC.

Not true with fraudsters like Obama, however, who hid his birth certificate and lied through his teeth about it.

[frog in a pot]

We have had a good exchange. Let me throw a couple of things on the table in parting.

- ...In addition to the things you mention, "our Founders wanted" candidates whose parents were loyal by birth or citizenship (recall that we had just fought a bloody, expensive war with England), but they understood it was impossible for a candidate born before Adoption to have such parents and so provided a temporary, time sensitive provision to solve that problem.

- a parent "being here legally" is not the same as being a citizen.

Now that you have a sense of my view you can imagine how surprised I was when my R Senator told me that if Obama said he was born in Hawaii that was good enough for him. It was a sad moment and my first thought was "the fix has gotta' be in".