Ask AP
Are Obama, McCain natural-born citizens?
I've heard that Barack Obama doesn't qualify as a natural-born U.S. citizen -- and can't serve as president -- because his one parent who was a citizen (his mother) hadn't lived in the U.S. for five years past her 16th birthday when Obama was born. Is this true?
Answer: This is one of the many myths about Obama that have been circulating on the Internet, and it's entirely untrue.
You do indeed need to be a natural-born citizen to serve as president -- and Obama, who was born in Hawaii, qualifies. The age and citizenship status of Obama's parents have nothing to do with his citizenship status; under the law, he's a natural-born citizen because he was born in the United States.
Some bloggers have raised similar questions about whether Sen. John McCain is eligible to run, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. He too is considered a natural-born citizen, since he was born on an U.S. military base in a place that was, at the time, a U.S. territory.
Just to put any concerns to rest, the Senate passed a resolution declaring that McCain is a natural-born citizen. The resolution -- submitted to the Senate by Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, among others -- passed by unanimous consent in April.
What are candidates' positions on Cuba?
Where do the presidential hopefuls stand on U.S. policies toward Cuba, after a half-century of enforcing a trade embargo and otherwise trying to isolate the country?
Answer: On Cuba, what you see with President Bush is what you get with John McCain.
The Republican candidate says Cuba must be in transition to a free and open democracy before he'd negotiate an easing of the trade embargo. He's not interested in meeting Raul Castro absent marked progress beforehand. So there's not much question where he stands on Cuba.
The same can't be said about his Democratic rival. Barack Obama is ready to relax restrictions on family travel and on money that Cuban-Americans can send to their families back on the island. Otherwise, he's been harder to pin down.
Earlier in the campaign, he said he'd be open to meeting hostile leaders, including Cuba's, without setting preconditions. He took a lot of heat for that, and you don't hear the same from him these days.
Now he says he'd engage Cuba in diplomacy "at a time and place of my choosing, but only when we have an opportunity to advance the interests of the United States, and to advance the cause of freedom for the Cuban people."
