Of Facial Hair and the Vice-Presidency

[barking_iguana]

Some wag recently asked a reporter in a public Q&A

Am I correct in thinking that in modern times, it has been rare for VP picks to have beards? If so, how does this affect the chances of say, Bill Richardson or Charlie Crist?

I imagine Barbara Flavin (Richardson) is not amused at any possible confusion. I suppose Charlie's too scared to be amused, either, which is a shame.

On a related note, if Obama decides to pick a woman governor, we can assume it will be Kathleen Sebelius, rather than any other name that's been bandied about but would be picking too many fights at one time.

Comments

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

Sebelius is the only one whose name I can remember hearing. Granholm is naturalized and so that’s not going anywhere.

I looked up a little on the ‘natural born citizen’ requirement and, interestingly, it isn’t clearly defined. Some want to consider McCain naturalized or whatever, because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, but I would retort that whatever ‘natural born citizen’ means has to include John McCain, just because. :) Barry Goldwater was born in the Arizona Territory; objections that Goldwater wasn't ‘natural born’ would be even less convincing.

I think we can define ‘natural born’ as whatever the major political parties are willing to nominate. :)

[rabjeff.livejournal.com]

Someone born of American citizen parents is a natural born citizen. This is especially true if the parents were working in the military or diplomatic service.
Anyone who had to be naturalized is clearly not. This still leaves some gray area.

[chemoelectric.livejournal.com]

That’s what I had thought, but apparently it has varied and isn’t as clear as I’d thought.