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Will the Constitution Doom McCain's Presidency?
Republican presidential candidate's John McCain's detractors may call him many things, but "un-American" isn't one of them. The Constitution suggests otherwise. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says that only a natural-born citizen is eligible for the presidency -- and by that standard, McCain, who was born on a military base in Panama, is arguably not American enough to hold the office of Presidency.
Ridiculous? Not entirely. Bloggers Scott Greenfield, Jonathan Turley and WSJ Law Blog's Dan Slater discuss the potential constitutional impediment to McCain's presidency in greater detail.
Even more interesting, McCain's likely opponent, Barack Obama, bypasses a similar constitutional question under Article II, Section 1 by just two years. Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, just two years after Hawaii gained statehood. If Obama were just a little older, Hawaii would have still been a territory, and Obama would have faced the same constitutional question as did Barry Goldwater -- who was born in Arizona when it was a territory as well.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on February 28, 2008 at 04:02 PM | Permalink
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