Sen. John McCain and his campaign staff may find comfort and amusement in what challenger J.D. Hayworth has just revealed: this presidency may be involved in some sort of identify theft case…
“All I’m saying is, for every race across the country, especially with identity theft in the news, it would be great that people can confirm who they say they are,” Hayworth said.
“Identity theft? I mean, come on,” an incredulous CNN host Campbell Brown said, laughing. “Is that honestly what this is about?”
Brown pressed Hayworth as to whether he was “comfortable with the fact that (Obama is) an American citizen.” The Constitution requires that the president be a natural-born citizen, which is widely viewed as meaning he must be born in the United States. Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii. During the presidential race, Obama’s campaign produced the Hawaii-issued short-form birth certificate, but fringe Obama critics, dubbed “birthers,” continue to demand to see his long-form birth certificate.
“Barack Obama is the president of the United States. He is our 44th president,” Hayworth told Brown. “I have no qualms about who he is, or who he says he is.”
But in a Jan. 26 interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Hayworth said Obama “should come forward with the information, that’s all.”
“Well, gosh, we all had to bring our birth certificates to show we were who we said we were, and we were the age we said we were, to play football and youth sports,” Hayworth said. “Shouldn’t we know exactly that anyone who wants to run for public office is a natural-born citizen of the United States and is who they say they are?”
Ooookay. The birthers are free to push their agenda, but for somebody wanting to run a serious political campaign — especially to challenge an incumbent like John McCain, this is not an issue to focus on. Once you let it slip out that you insist on seeing Barack Obama’s birth certificate, you’ll be sure to attract the (negative) attention from both the left- and right-leaning media. And when that happens whatever momentum you’ve established will come to a screeching halt.
