If a Presidential candidate was born outside of the U.S. is his citizenship a question?

The U.S. Navy base in the Panama Canal Zone is U.S territory, but plenty of people still questioned McCain's citizenship. They were wrong. Guess you missed it.

The constitution states that the President has to be a natural-born citizen, that is, born on US soil. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a US territory and not part of Panama, and therefore it counts as being born on US soil.

It's a legitimate question as the constitution isn't more specific about what a natural-born citizen is. It made sense at the time, but of course even the writers of the constitution couldn't foresee everything. So it was quite rightly considered back in 2008 by a federal judge, who concluded that McCain was eligible to run for President.

There's a wider issue here - what if someone is born on a US military base in, say, Germany, and then goes into politics? Even with two US citizen parents they couldn't run for President. I answer questions frequently in "Embassies & Consulates" from "military brats" born in Germany who ask if they have dual citizenship, so I well know that special provisions apply to them and children of diplomats. They are treated in international law as being born at "home" rather than abroad, as it's only because of their own government that their parents happened not to be in the USA at the time. It's a necessary bit of international law as otherwise countries would end up with citizens they don't want, and that'd stop international co-operation over military bases and diplomacy! So the legislation introduced by Senator Claire McCaskill, mentioned in the last paragraph of the article linked below, seems like a very sensible idea.

A couple points you may have missed. Children born to U S servicemen (McCain's father was an Admiral in the Navy) are considered natural born citizens by law. When McCain was born the Panama Canal Zone was U S territory. The fact that it isn't now doesn't change what happened when it was. This makes him old enough and a natural born U S citizen.

Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

“ No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. ”

The grandfather provision of the "natural born Citizen" clause provides an exception to the "natural born" requirement for those persons who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. The term Natural Born Citizen had been used as early as 1777 in a letter from Thomas Jefferson[1], in his role as correspondent for a committee of the Continental Congress, to American ambassadors in Europe.

Additionally, the Twelfth Amendment states that: "[N]o person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." The Fourteenth Amendment does not use the phrase "natural born citizen". It does provide that "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are Citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The grandfather provision of the natural born citizen clause applies only to people who were citizens of the United States at the time the Constitution was ratified. After that everybody has to be natural born to be eligible.

Senator McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was legally US territory. This question was answered when Sen. Barry Goldwater ran for President in 1964. He was born in the Arizona Territory, before it became a state. The courts ruled that the natural born rule applied to anywhere that was legally considered to be US soil.

John McCain was a natural born US citizen because his parents were US citizens. His citizenship was never questioned. The only thing that kept him from becoming president was losing the election.

McCain was born on a military base in Panama, making him a US citizen.

Children of military personnel born in foreign countries are citizens.

Panama Canal Zone was a Army base. So I guess if some troops have a kid in Iraq on a base they are US born citizens.

John McCain's citizenship was questioned.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mc...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&...

Since Senator McCain was born to two natural born American citizens he is considered a natural born American. For example my wife and I are both natural born citizens. She is pregnant and we are going to Italy in a few weeks. If she were to give birth in Italy our child would still be considered a natural born citizen.

In the case of Obama, his mother was natural born and his father was not so he would not have this same inherent eligibility of being considered natural born if he was not born within the borders of the USA.

Obama begin his administration a bit shaky and its been getting worse as time goes by, everything the man does is questionable...Vote Independent!....My logic for this is that the political parties are already corrupted and controlled by these lobbyist institutions and with Independents in office it is harder for corporations to control the legislation and the politicians will not be able to hide as well as they do

There are no lefties or righties, just Democrat and Republicans, of course those numbers are shrinking. Independents and other parties are slowly gaining, I figure in 10 years there will only be Independents and minority parities.