Now, debate over a proposed 28th Amendment is focused on the popularity and political future of one man: macho Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites), the former bodybuilder and action-movie star who has been California's governor for barely a year.

With a bit of encouragement from the Terminator himself, some of Schwarzenegger's supporters are pushing for a constitutional amendment that would allow the Austrian-born governor to run for the White House as soon as 2008. Schwarzenegger is blocked by Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution. It reads, "No person except a natural born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of president." The 12th Amendment says the vice president cannot be foreign-born.

Could America's infatuation with Schwarzenegger lead to passage of a constitutional amendment that would drop those bans - an idea that has died in Congress more than two dozen times since the 1870s? Probably not, but Schwarzenegger's rise in politics has led members of Congress and a few of the governor's wealthy California donors to launch a long-shot campaign that they have cast as an effort to guarantee equal rights for millions of foreign-born Americans.