Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney is an Eastern elite whose father was a famous political figure. George W. Romney had a high-profile private sector job, as C.E.O of American Motors, manufacturer of the Rambler, before serving as governor of Michigan for three terms.
In 1968, Gov. Romney ran for the Republican nomination against Richard Nixon, who won that year, and Ronald Reagan, who went on to win in 1980. But what George Romney is best remembered for is being tripped up on a statement about his support for the Vietnam War:
Romney told a news reporter that he had been “brainwashed” by the military and the diplomatic corps into supporting the Vietnam War. As the year 1968 opened, Romney was opposed to further American intervention in Vietnam and had decided to run as the Republican version of [antiwar Democrat] Gene McCarthy. Romney’s support faded slowly, and he withdrew from the race on February 28, 1968..
But even if he had won the presidency, George Romney would have faced a constitutional question before he could be sworn in. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution, which says “No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the office of president”* prohibits people born in foreign countries from serving as president, and he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, into a renegade sect of polygamous Mormons.
George Romney’s grandfather, Miles Park Romney, had five wives, and had moved the family to Mexico when polygamy became a federal crime in the United States. (It was a crime in Mexico, too, but was largely ignored in remote areas.) However, when the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, when George was about three years old, the famly returned to the United States, eventually ending up in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1969, Pres. Nixon appointed Romney as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a post he held until 1973.
*Update: Corrected citation from the Constitution that prohibits foreign-born presidents. H/t: Bob Sakowski in comments.
“The 14th Amendment prohibits people born in foreign countries from serving as president…”
Where, exactly, does the 14th say that?
14th Amendment says naturalized citizens cannot become president. George Romney was a citizen from birth as both his oarents were citizens.
For the record, Obama was born in Singapore but is a natural born American citizena dn thus eligible for the presidencv.
Answering myself:
According to this commentary http://www.newsmax.com/lowell_ponte/John_McCain/2007/07/16/18349.html
the 1st Congress in 1790 passed a law stating that
“The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States.”
But since it is not in the Constitution itself, George Romney’s case would have had to be decided in the Supreme Court.
John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Panama ceded “control” over the Zone to the US, but it was not in the “United States.” I doubt anyone would challenge McCain if he ran — but who knows these days?
My previous email didn’t post. Just to say that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961; Hawaii became a state in 1959.
The 14th amendment doesn’t use the term “natural born citizen” but redefines citizenship: “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.”
Persons who served in an official capacity in the US, swearing loyalty to the Constitution, and then joined the Confederacy, were made ineligible to rejoin the US in any office; but Congress by a 2/3 vote could remove the disability. In 1978 Congress posthumously did so for Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.