Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abergen.

This day January 26, 1964, Margaret Chase Smith announced her bid for the Republican nomination.

It actually happened on January 27th, but as you know, we fudge it a little bit on this

podcast from time to time if you want to be really strict about the dates, go find some other historical podcast.

But anyway, January 26, 1964, Margaret Chase Smith announces that she's going to run for the GOP nomination.

We have talked a little bit on this show about JFK being the first Catholic to be elected

president breaking a religious barrier of sorts.

Margaret Chase Smith actually cited that in her speech

as she tried to break the barrier

and become the first woman placed into nomination

by a major party, which she did.

She made it all the way to the convention and was placed into

nomination. She was also eminently qualified to run for president. She had been in

Congress as a representative from Maine for over 20 years longer than any of the other men running for the GOP nomination that year.

So my sense is that when people list trailblazing female politicians, Margaret Chase Smith's

name doesn't maybe come up right away but she is a very fascinating character.

We're going to talk about her now and her 1964 run with as always Nicole Hemmer of Columbia.

Hello Nicky.

Hello Jody. And Kelly Carter Jackson. Hello Kelly.

Hey there. So Nicky paint the sketch of this 1964 run and then we'll talk about

Margaret Chase Smith in general but why does she jump into this race in this moment?

...