George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father, ran for President in 1968 while he was Governor of Michigan.
George Romney was born in Mexico and lived there until he was five years old. The evidence of that is a LOT more compelling than any claim about Obama.
In case you don’t remember the 1968 campaign, that was the one where the racist third-party candidate carried five states, got more than 30% of the vote in three more, and won 46 electoral votes. And yet, even in that atmosphere, Romney’s birthplace was never an issue.
Of course, George Romney was a successful white guy. But I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.
This is another we’ll-never-know situation, but at this point any such attempt will be buttressed by the previous, i.e., “it almost worked on the Black guy, let’s try it on the Ukrainian-American.”
As for Ted Cruz, other than his Hispanic surname, everything about him reads as non-Hispanic white. I have no memory of his calling on his Cuban heritage except as the classic up-from-hardship American story, or of even speaking Spanish in public. If either of the Castro brothers had a similar background, I doubt they would get off as easily. (Since they are frequently mentioned as possible future candidates, I’m pretty darn sure it’ll come up.)
I’m confused what your point is. No one is positing that every espouser of Birtherism is motivated purely by racism. So what percentage would you deem qualitatively or quantitatively significant? Seventy-five? Fifty-one? Thirty-three and a third?
Let me propose an alternative theory: as far as I know, two elected US presidents have been subjected to claims that they lied about their places of birth and that, in fact, they were born outside of the United States: Chester Arthur and Barack Obama. What did they have in common? It wasn’t their race. It was that, if they had been born outside of the United States, they would not have been United States citizens by birth. And they are (are far as I can tell) the only US presidents whose fathers were not US citizens at the time of their birth.
This is different from the debate over whether or not the children of US Citizens born overseas are “natural born”. Certainly, framers thought they were (see, e.g., The Naturalization Act of 1790 (“the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens”). But, as I understand it, the argument is that the territorial provisions of the 14th Amendment alter that. I disagree, and John McCain is a good example: the child of a US service member serving overseas can’t possibly be ineligible. I recognize that this question is technically unresolved, and it’s come up with respect to a variety of (white) candidates. But I think that most of the attempts to compare Obama and Arthur with McCain, George Romney, Charles Evans Hughes, etc. confuses the relevant question.
What Arthur and Obama had in common is not that they were black, it’s that they (or their fathers) were viewed as being “foreign”. I’m sure there was a racial component in that, but it’s not like being foreign is a common stereotype for American blacks.
I’ve read a little of the Arthur birthirism drivel. First off, let’s remember that Arthur was never elected President – he was elected Vice President, assumed office after Garfield was assassinated, and didn’t run for re-election.
Second, while his father was a British subject when Garfield was born, it’s pretty much accepted by everyone that Garfield was, in fact, born in Vermont.
While both were subject to birthirism as political slander, there’s a vast difference between charges that Arthur’s father was British vs. the claims that Obama’s very pregnant mother flew from Hawaii to Kenya, had a baby there, planted false birth announcements in newspaper, forged a birth certificate and then flew back to the U.S. with a newborn infant in her arms.
The first birther claims were made back in 2004 by Anthony Martin, a wingnut who was seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator in Illinois. Martin named his campaign committee for a 1986 Congressional Run “The Anthony R. Martin-Trigona Congressional Campaign to Exterminate Jew Power in America” and has a long history of vexatious lawsuits and anti-Semitic activity, not to mention his brushes with the law. In 2008, he repeated his claim that Obama was born in Africa.
What’s interesting is that the claims of someone who’s obviously a whack job would be seized upon so readily and so unquestioningly by so many people when Martin repeated them in 2008 and that the accusations had such staying power.
And I think this should be said: Obama was a phenomenon in Illinois politics. I recall a New Yorker article I read about hi in 2004, when he successfully ran for the US Senate. I found it again:
Yep, in 2004, he was known for his ability to work with Republicans. Even downstate farmers liked him. Does that mean the birther nonsense isn’t racist? Nope. Realistically, there are a only few factors at work here:
Obama’s name. Every other US President in history had a northern European “American” name. Even without the Hussein, that name didn’t say “white American.”
Obama’s ethnicity. LOTS of Presidents had foreign-born parents–Jackson, Buchanon, Wilson, Arthur, and a raft of others–but from Ireland, Scotland, or England. None had roots to any place in southern Europe, let alone Africa. Obama is Kenyan on his father’s side. Ben Carson’s African roots are much farther back.
Obama’s enormous popularity. Politics is a dirty business. Those who promulgated the birther business in 2008 may or may not have been racist themselves, but they seized on and manipulated xenophobia and covert, often unacknowledged racism of some Americans. These followers desperately wanted to believe Obama couldn’t be President, ad it wasn’t simply because he was a Democrat.
I disagree and I think that your characterization of the “charges” is somewhat misleading.
No one disputes that neither Chester Arthur nor Barack Obama’s fathers were not United States citizens at the time of the births of their respective sons.
Further, I think, no one disputes that if Barack Jr. and Chester had not been born in the United States, they would not have been US citizens at birth. But if they were born in the United States, they would be.
The “birtherism” charge against both was that the sons (Chester and Barack Jr.) were not, in fact, born in the United States (Chester was ostensibly born in Canada and Barack Jr. in Kenya), but that their families subsequently lied about it. And, indeed, one of the most compelling arguments that this is wrong is the existence of contemporaneous records making the claim that Chester was born in Vermont and Barack Jr. in Hawaii (and one reason that I believe both children were born in the United States).
I mean, sure, it’s more plausible that Chester was born in Canada (where his mother’s family lived and where is father had immigrated to) than that Barack Jr. was born in Kenya. But I’m not sure the difference is as “vast” as you suggest. In fact, I think that these two situations are far more similar than any of the others mentioned. And they emphasize a critical distinction between the Obama/Arthur issue and the McCain/Romney/Hughes/Cruz issue. Which is that the former deals with “disputed” facts being applied to established law and the latter deals with established facts being applied to disputed law. I don’t think that the latter category appeals to the same sort of conspiracy types as the former.
Is it theoretically possible to believe the Holocaust was a hoax and not be anti-Semitic?
Sure, and I suppose if you look hard enough you might find one or two, but realistically the only people who insist the Holocaust was a hoax are anti-Semites.
There was a racialized component. Thomas Nast cartoons of 1867 and 1877 in the “president maker” Harper’s Weekly. Just a blacks have been derogatorily equated with simians, so too were Irish immigrants of the 19th century, though of course the viscious persecution of blacks was far worse than that of Irish.
If I remember correctly, there was a glitch in the law at the time and the Panama Canal Zone was exempt. At the time of his birth, McCain was not a citizen. Congress corrected the law the following year and retroactively granted “natural born” status to those affected .
I don’t disagree that there was a racialized component to the anti-Irish sentiment of the time period. I’m certainly not a period expert, but I’m not aware of any anti-Irish sentiment directed at Arthur. (Wikipedia tells me that his father was born in Northern Ireland, but of Scottish and English descent). In fact, the “birtherism” theory for Arthur was that he was born in Canada during a visit to his mother’s (English descended) family. Now, I grant you that this is somewhat at odds with my theory that birtherism is motivated by the father’s lack of US citizen, since it would have to be known that William Arthur was a British subject and, therefore, likely known that he was born in Ireland.
Every reference I can readily find to the irish = black theory seems to come from after the rise of Obama as a way to counter the argument Arthur was also subjected to birtherism rumors and was white. (then again, this article suggests that the original theory was that Chester was born in Ireland and that it morphed into Canada. So, I don’t know.
Would you agree, though, that after the Hawaiian newspaper announcement and birth certificate were produced, the continuing birther bullshit was racist? I’ll grant that his his legal status could initially be legitimately checked out. As I invisibly mention above, sure, he had some weird things – weird name, foreign father, etc., but once it all checked out, that should have been the end of it.
What do you think? After his documents, etc., were release, should that have been it? Is/Was the continuation (to this day!) of this birther nonsense in large part racist?
I’m not sure if Birtherism was racist, a firm belief that he was not a NBC despite all the evidence or a “Hopefully this disqualifies Obama*” strategy. I firmly believe Obama was an NBC and the larger “He is not eligible.” position is ridiculous. For me, the issue was that at no point in the process does anyone have to prove eligibility of the Presidency. Secretaries of State allow knowingly ineligible people to run all of the time. No one was really sure if Congress could not count the EVs of someone ineligible or would have to impeach them. For me this was the important part of the birther movement, questioning the system that seems to be missing a major Constitutional check. But of course since it is believed that birther = racist, Arizona was not able to put a system in place to have a candidate prove their eligibility.
*For some racists it was because he was Black. For non-racists it was because they believed he would make a horrible President.
It is not as simple as that. And this was at issue in the Obama Birtherism.
First let me say unequivocally that Barack Obama produced adequate proof that he was in fact born in Hawaii and thus had US citizen status from the moment of his birth under the principle of jus soli.
But if a US citizen woman the same age as Obama’s mother gave birth to a child outside the United Status and the father was not a US citizen then that child would not be a US citizen from the moment of birth under the principle of jus sanguinis.
At the time Barack Obama was born US law required that the mother have lived a certain period of time within the United States after age 14 in order to be able to pass citizenship to children born outside the United States. Obama’s mother was not old enough to have met that requirement.
So if Obama had been born outside the United States he would not have been a citizen from the moment of birth.
That was a birther theory, but AFAIK no court has ever held that interpretation. So it’s not quite as black and white (no pun intended) as you are presenting it.
Thanks. I’d still like to see a precedent showing that would actually be applied in a situation similar to Obama’s but won’t push it. I just find the idea that NBC cannot pass that status along simply because they are a few months shy of 19 to be ludicrous. Stranger things have happened though.