There are residency requirements for the US citizen parent, but it’s not a blanket denial of citizenship. Since you had to reside in the US for 5 years after you’d reached age 16 it meant anyone born to a parent who was under the age of 21 could have problems, and it would have affected Obama since his mother was only 18 at the time.
Political parties, as important as they are in practice in our system, have no recognition in the Constitution. If such a calamity were to befall and the top eligible successor were a Cabinet secretary from the previous administration who had not yet gotten around to resigning, then there would be no legal basis to deny that secretary the presidency.
If there were no such cabinet secretary or other successor, then the House of Representatives could still convene to vote on a new Speaker, who would then immediately succeed to the Presidency (whereupon the House would presumably then choose yet another Speaker for keeps).
If sufficient members of the House of Representatives were also killed that a quorum did not exist, then the Senate would convene, and select a new President Pro Tem, who would likewise immediately succeed.
If the Senate had likely lost sufficient members that a quorum could not be formed, then the governments of the various states would name replacements according to the procedures set out by the various states for this purpose, and the new senators would convene and choose a President Pro Tem to succeed to the Presidency.
If a sufficient number of state governments were likewise decapitated, along with their designated successions, that a quorum could still not be formed, then Mel Gibson would fill his tank up with gas and assume the office of President of the Thunderdome.
Oh no, let’s not start this mess. Next thing you know, every US American afraid of the wrath of the Rev. Utr’gak Sxxzpoq will be using “Martian American” as a blanket term for any person of even remote Martian descent, insinuating that any person with green skin identifies with Mars and/or is a citizen of the United States.
What about the Martians living in Jamaica, huh? What about the British Martians?
An interesting hypothetical, counselor. Are cabinet secretaries appointed for the duration of their president’s term or what?
Ah, I discover not. They remain in office until the resign or their replacements are confirmed by the Senate. In that case I would agree that Rice would become President for the term beginning Jan 20, 2009.
Invoking the 25th Amendment would require that being unqualified to be President be regarded as the equivalent of being unable to carry of the duties of being President. Biden and the Obama cabinet, who obviously are not unbiased judges of the issue, will presumedly feel that Obama is capable of doing the job even if he wasn’t legally eligible for it. And a Democratic Senate will probably feel that being born in Kenya doesn’t qualify as a high crime or misdemeanor. I’m not saying that their opinions will be legally right - but I think it would be possible for them to argue the point if they wished to. Would there be a means for some third party outside of the government to force the issue and put it before a court without the cooperation of the Obama cabinet or Senate?
Should it be found out before the EC convienes, how large a campaign to encourage “faithless electors” to vote against Biden since he was not the “Presidential Candidate?”
But would that require him to be a natural-born American, or are immigrated aliens eligible for the term as well?
If the foreign-born child of american parents (one or both) is not a natural-born citizen, wouldn’t that require them to immigrate like any other foreign-born alien? Would they become “naturalized citizens” when their parents register the birth at the consulate?
Spain doesn’t even have the concept of “natural born citizens” (it sounds like if you’ve been born by Cesarean you can’t be president 
) and there’s very few positions if any which can’t be held by anybody who is a citizen, so I find it fascinating.
As I jocularly eluded to earlier, you underestimate the American public’s love for over-applying PC terms. Martian American would be applied to Martians no matter where they lived or what their nationality was. Martians who had never seen the planet Earth, except for perhaps in telescopes, would be called Martian-American by the US public, worried that “Green” or “Martian” or, I dunno, “person” might not be PC. [/rant]
Don’t underestimate the power of defined categories, though. As a state government employee, I can tell you for sure that if someone’s skin color is darker than a good suntan and they don’t speak Spanish or Arabic, we check the “African-American” box on the computer form, even if they’re actually Creole-speaking Haitians or refugees from Sudan, because there are no categories for “Haitian” or plain old “African”.
Slipping back into the land of the screwballs, it seems that Obama has been sued in California before over this and the court dismissed the suit as the defendant had no (legal?) standing–wha? And Alan Keyes (apparently by virtue of being a candidate for Pres) does?
What? Why? Why would Keyes have standing and some non-candidate not?
Which is exactly my point. If the government simply must have a category for everyone, at least have one that isn’t fundamentally flawed. It would be better if the US in general could just get over obsession wrt race and ethnicity, but that is for a perfect world made of sunshine, rainbows, and cucumber sandwiches.
Well, in our case (Department of Public Welfare), the racial categories are purely for demographic purposes (to be able to pull out statistics showing how many women, how many African-Americans, how many Hispanics, how many extranational refugees, etc. are receiving benefits). They don’t affect the distribution or approval of benefits at all.
Oh, I know it is all just demographics. I’m just saying in my happy imagined land those demographics would be meaningless and we would all just snuggle up in a big pile with glasses of wine and a tray of cucumber sammies. sigh
Do we all get rainbow unicorn ponies and sing Kum-Ba-Yah, too? 
Kum-Ba-Yah is an obnoxious song. But, yes, we all get rainbow unicorn ponies. In fact, not having a rainbow unicorn pony would be a serious felony, punishable by smooches.
I used to collect ethnic data on incoming prisoners. I had a very simple system. I asked a prisoner what ethnic group he belonged to and I wrote down whatever he said.
“I’m Idaho!”
[ ] Caucasian
[ ] Black
[ ] Hispanic
[ ] Asian/Pacific Islander
[ ] Hmong
[ ] Kazakh
Idaho
Seriously, though, that’s the best way to do it as long as you aren’t concerned about the number of categories for your data set, imho. I’m sure the gummint has it’s argument for keeping the categories limited.
ETA: Besides, ethnicity is probably more valuable than race in most studies.
That’s a vicious cycle, though… Smooches often lead to a state where a person can no longer keep a unicorn as a pet. So felons can never re-integrate into society.
See the injustice inherent in the system!
Hah! It takes more than that to fool Little Nemo. I designed a form with a blank line.
That blank line must have gotten pretty full after a while.
IdahoHmongLaosSerbCroatIndo-ChineseJapaneseDirtykneesLookatthese