Comments on: A Report on the Texas GOP Senate Runoff Dewhurst vs. Cruz: This Time It’s Personal

By: Cruz Defeats Dewhurst in Texas | US Senators

Cruz Defeats Dewhurst in Texas | US Senators — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 14:48:41 +0000

[...] Iâ€™d provide an update to an earlier post. Ted Cruz handily defeated David Dewhurst in the Texas Senate Republican runoff. Barring [...]

By: Cruz Defeats Dewhurst in Texas » Postmodern Conservative | A First Things Blog

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 06:37:09 +0000

[...] I’d provide an update to an earlier post. Ted Cruz handily defeated David Dewhurst in the Texas state senate Republican runoff. Barring [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:17:41 +0000

Barry: Right, it’s not even close to correct. I know lots of folks don’t like the idea that anyone born in the USA is automatically a US citizen, but whether that were the policy or not, the constitution clearly says that someone like Cruz, and McCain, and any other person who is unambiguously a citizen at birth, is eligible for the presidency, regardless of where he was born.

By: Andrew Stevens

Andrew Stevens — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:36:55 +0000

Not nowhere else. Jus soli is the case in virtually every country in the Americas, including Canada. It is true it is practically unknown anywhere but the Americas, though.

By: Barry Thistlethwaite

Barry Thistlethwaite — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:21:06 +0000

Brian, it is “close to” correct, due to the wording of Article II Section 1 of the Constitution: “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.”
You can be born to citizen parents anywhere and still be a natural born citizen. Unfortunately under the Citizenship Clause (“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.”)–and unlike every other industrialized country–if you are born within our borders, you are also a citizen. Nowhere else is this the case.

By: Andrew Stevens

Andrew Stevens — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:51:29 +0000

As near as I can tell, Brian is correct and Cruz is legally qualified to be President. As far as I can find out, both his parents were American citizens when he was born in Canada. This, in most reasonable interpretations, makes him a natural-born citizen just as John McCain was.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:12:05 +0000

Why do so many people think that you have to be born in America to be president? That’s not even close to correct.

By: CJ Wolfe

CJ Wolfe — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 02:17:47 +0000

That’s a good points Pete, I think you are right. My Cain counterexample is flawed because he’s an exception to the normal pattern of republican nomination. Come to think of it, there really haven’t been many presidential candidates with zero public experience who came as close to the nomination as Cain did. So Jay, your point is well taken too

By: Pete Spiliakos

Pete Spiliakos — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:23:34 +0000

CJ, I think there was more to the Herman Cain campaign that Romney’s weaknesses. Absent a dominant Reagan-in-1980 figure who had both huge cred as an authentic conservative and a record of governance, the conditions were there for a Cain boom from voters who had an authenticity-first orientation. Or to put it differently, I could see Can having a boom even if Romney hadn’t run but Jindal/Daniels/Christie had. Maybe not if Ryan had run.

Cain tapped into a longing for a POPULIST businessman, who was socially conservative. He also, for a moment, offered a kind of technocracy that sounded really attractive. The populist conservative businessman would get the really smart people together after the election and they would produce the answers we need. It would be like a center-right version of the WEST WING.

Cain the presidential candidate (as distinct from Cain the restaurant executive of years ago) was a fraud – an attention seeker manipulating the process to get a better media landing spot. But for a moment, he did strike some chords of public sentiment and those chords are still there.

By: CJ Wolfe

CJ Wolfe — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:28:04 +0000

Jay, do you remember Herman Cain? He never served in any public office and was able to make a run on the nomination because Romney has so much baggage. This nomination cycle was a fiasco.
You’re right to point out Cruz’ immigrant citizenshipship; that does disqualify him, I forgot about that. I just wish there would have been some more capable Republican politicians up on that debate stage.