[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Here is one of several “Birther” cases challenging McCain before the 2000 election:

Where do you get that the case is from before the 2000 election? The decision is dated 2008.

[Spaulding]

Bubba you are absolutely right. I grabbed a pointer from my “Favorites” file without opening it up again. There were a couple of suits in 2008 and one in 1999, and dozens of Democrats raising questions about McCain's eligibility in 2007/2008, subsiding after Leahy and McCaskill convened a couple of senate hearings to provide cover for McCain, SB2678 and SenRes511. Among the thirty or so pointers, I will search through to find the 1999 complaint.

Of course McCain was not considered much of a threat in his first run, so there wasn't as much energy put into undermining his candidacy. It seems reasonable that the Senate hearings were a quid-pro-quo to keep McCain from asking the questions asked about him of Obama.