Governor: Debate letting foreign-born serve as president

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday called for a national debate on changing the U.S. Constitution in a way that would allow him to run for president.

"I think that it is, you know, a debate that ought to go on, just to see where everyone stands in this country," Schwarzenegger said in a nationally broadcast radio interview with syndicated talk show host Tony Snow.

The Austrian-born Republican taped the interview hours before heading to a private fund-raiser in Santa Monica for President Bush, who lags behind Democrat John Kerry in California and is locked in a tight national race.

Snow had asked Schwarzenegger, 57, whether the Constitution, which requires that presidents be American-born, should be amended to allow longtime citizens who are foreign-born to run. GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Schwarzenegger ally, has been promoting such an amendment since before the movie star's rise to governor last year in the recall election.

Schwarzenegger has been asked about the subject repeatedly since taking office last year and, while avoiding direct answers about his own ambitions, has been on record as supporting a constitutional change.

Earlier this year, he told Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," that "times have changed" and that there are many foreign-born Americans "who have worked within the government and have done an extraordinary job."

In telling Snow he wants a national debate, he went a step further.

"Me being an immigrant and having lived here for 36 years," Schwarzenegger told Snow, "of course I think that if you have contributed to the country and if people have confidence in you, that you should be able to do that, to run for high office."

"But at the same time, you know, this is something that the people of America ought to debate, the people that were born here," he said. "This country belongs to everyone, so I think it ought to be a debate that should happen."

Schwarzenegger added that such a debate should be postponed until after the election. "Definitely not now."

Political experts read varying levels of strategy into Schwarzenegger's remarks.

Russell J. Dalton, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, said it sounded to him as if Schwarzenegger was merely responding to Snow's questions about his opinion rather than trying to prompt a change.

"This is unlikely to happen anywhere in the near future because it requires votes by Congress and votes by a supermajority of the states," Dalton said.

But Joel Aberbach, a government professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Schwarzenegger likely thought through his response before he spoke on a show that reaches a national audience.

"Experienced performers as well as politicians rarely say things without calculating in advance what they mean," he said.

He said Schwarzenegger also may have wanted to send Bush a signal that he's doing him a favor by campaigning on his behalf.

"After all, between the two of them he's the star," Aberbach said of Schwarzenegger.

"It's a little crass," Aberbach said, but added, "What's the cost to Bush? The amendment is not going to be passed by November. Politicians understand that other politicians plug for themselves."

Schwarzenegger also told Snow that, while he supports Bush, he will not criticize Kerry. Schwarzenegger and his wife have a years-long friendship with Kerry and his wife, and have spent time together at one another's vacation homes around Sun Valley, Idaho.

"I promised myself that in this campaign I would never talk negative about him, because he's a terrific human being," Schwarzenegger said. "I just happen to have a different political philosophy."

Bush and Schwarzenegger have little in the way of a personal relationship and disagree on many social issues, but Schwarzenegger said the president is doing a good job and should be re-elected.

In explaining why he does not plan to campaign extensively for Bush out of state, Schwarzenegger told Snow he was so busy with state business that "I haven't even taken a vacation yet. I have not gone anywhere."

In fact, since taking office, the governor has vacationed in Hawaii and Idaho and traveled to Ohio and Israel on visits not connected to state business.

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