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One of the sillier parts of our Constitution is that only natural born citizens can become president. The New York Times reports that this could raise questions for John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone (McCain’s father and grandfather were Admirals).

Most experts agree that as a legal challenge, this issue won’t go very far. One lawyer said that if she were on the Supreme Court, she’d rule in McCain’s favor, “But it is certainly not a frivolous issue.”

Interestingly, Barack Obama was to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Again, there’s no doubt that he’s an American citizen. He was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, so this could be the first election were the two major candidates were not born in the continental U.S.

That’s less than two years after Hawaii was granted statehood. So if he was just slightly older, then we’d have the first election were the two major candidates weren’t born on American soil.

Posted by edelfenbein at February 29, 2008 11:07 AM