Originally posted by EL:
Just thought I'd throw my two cents in... Even if someone is a US citizen, if they were not born in the US they are not eligible for the presidency. So if Lois were born in Europe, she could not run regardless of her and her parents' citizenship status.
That's actually a matter of some debate--no one proven to be born outside the United States has ever become President (it's rumored that Chester A. Arthur was born in Canada, but in truth he was most likely born in Vermont; and in spite of various rumors, the evidence is overwhelming that Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii). The earliest U.S. Presidents weren't born U.S. citizens, because the U.S. didn't exist, but the colonies in which they were born were part of the United States by the time these men were elected President. There have been unsuccessful presidential candidates who were definitely born outside the United States (Lowell P. Weicker was born in France, George Romney was born in Mexico, and John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone). Then there was Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona in 1909, when it was a territory (Arizona became a state in 1912)--and Goldwater's case would certainly be revisited if someone who was born in a territory that became a state wanted to run for President (there are very elderly living Americans who were born in western territories that became states during their lifetimes--Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona; they aren't likely to run for President due to their age, but one never knows; and there are not-so-elderly people born in Alaska and Hawaii when they were territories who could potentially want to run for President--Alaska and Hawaii were granted statehood in 1959, only 54 years ago).
