A foreign-born as President of the United States

[big bad fab]

I'm from France, but very interested in US politics.

Up to now, I haven't been able to find an answer for a big question:
can a foreign-born become US president?

In the US Constitution, it's written that no foreign-born is "eligible" to the presidential office.

But let's imagine Dick Cheney dies from a heart attack and George Bush NOMINATES Arnold as VP. Arnie is confirmed by the Senate. And then, an impeahcment process is on the way against Dubya (eg on Irak or on a certain Valerie affair). Dubya resigns. Arnie becomes VP.

Is it possible? Does the word "eligible" means "possibly elected" or refer as well to a designation confirmed by the Senate as to a popular vote?

Thanks for your analysis and answers from a poor French without much information on US constitutional law....


PS: the end of the story comes as followed: Arnie picks McCain as VP. Arnie can't be candidate in '08. The McCain-Romney ticket beats Clinton-Richardson in '08 and Kerry (yes...)-Warner in '12.

[big bad fab]

Thanks for your replies and welcoming words.
Sorry for my bad English: French are widely known for their utter ignorance of foreign languages and I'm no exception.

Indeed, my misunderstanding of the word "eligible" stems from the French sense of the word  "eligible", which means "who fulfils all required conditions to be elected" (ELECTED but not DESIGNATED or NOMINATED). And from bad translations (yet published by a famous French specialist of constitutional law, the late Maurice Duverger).

A pity, Arnie VP and then P (a bit like Jack Ryan in Clancy's novels), it would have been quite funny.

Er, yeah, I'm almost the only GOP-fan in France... As there are "susual suspects", I'm a usual reader of The Economist, but it looks as if I miss all their socially liberal ideas and just pick their liberal economics and warmonger politics!

Europe is on its way down, especially France, with a stifling welfare state, a moral depravity, a leftist and bad education system.
In fact, it would be better to have Dubya here, since there is a very very very long way to make in Europe just to be slightly less statist in economics and to remember that "virtues" and "moral" stille belong to our language.
And we would be able to sack Dubya before he digged a budgetary abyss... and replace him by Sarkozy, Merkel, Rajoy, Fini or David Davis!
And the US would be relieved from Dubya and could bring McCain-Romney to the Oval Office: bingo!

As for Chirac, he is a real socialist (or "radical-socialiste" like many politicians in the 30s, that is to say old centre-left). He betrays the French right and I hope he will be ousted in 2007. Fundamentally, he fits more to the left than Fabius (before the referendum on European constitution) or Strauss-Kahn, 2 socialist leaders.

Sarkozy president and Fillon prime minister would be wonderful.

From my viewpoint, US politics is far more funny and interesting than French politics: a thriller versus an engineering exam, or sth like that...

Look forward to reading from ye all.

[big bad fab]

Le Pen is more a sort of decaying Pat Robertson...

It's really the old extreme right, as you've never experienced in the US: old economics, socially very conservative in words (but quite corrupted in deeds), racist and anti-Jew.

Not like Bruno Mégret, who created in 97 a small movement (1,5% in 2002), a bit more modern, liberal in economics, socially conservative, anti-Arab, elitist.

[big bad fab]

Welcome to the forum.

Cool to see a French conservative, I didn't know there were any...

Chirac?

Er.... Unfortunately not !!!!
Just read one of my messages on page 1 of this topic.

[big bad fab]

Of course, everybody reads Arnie when you talk about a constitutional reform on foreign-born in the presidential office.

But what about Blair ?
A bit young to retire from politics. As Bush-supporter, uneligible to international functions (UN, EU,...).

But in a US presidential election ?
Rep or Dem? Rep would be smarter, as he would anyway win many votes in the North East.