2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: How can Cruz run for president? [View all]unblock
(52,206 posts)born outside the u.s. but to a u.s. citizen parent means you're a u.s. citizen from birth.
in cruz's case he also apparently had canadian citizenship automatically due to being born there. as you said, he renounced that, but he's also always been a u.s. citizen.
in truth i think the "natural-born" thing is an archaism, leftover from the early days to prevent some british person from becoming a naturalized u.s. citizen and then president and then putting us back under british control. a sort of anachronistic manchurian candidate fear i guess.
i don't think it's a meaningful requirement these days, if someone can become a u.s. citizen and then get elected president i don't really see a problem with that.
that said, if republicans are going to play games about obama's constitutional qualifications, screw them, i'm gonna fight back! it's ludicrous given that they're the prime offenders. they even wanted ahhhnold to run!