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

My name is Jody Abergen.

This day, Juneth, 1972.

In California Senators Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern are appearing on ABC to begin

stating their final case in the Democratic race ahead of that state's key presidential primary.

Joining them from a studio in New York is Representative Shirley Chism,

who became the first woman to appear in a presidential debate

after previously making history as the first black woman

elected to the US Congress. I'm joined to discuss as always by Nicole Hemmer of

Columbia. Hello Nicky. Hey Jody. So I will just say we've both been waiting for our chance to talk about Shirley Chism.

We both find her incredibly fascinated.

This may not be the only time we talk about her.

But I do want to start a little bit with this debate.

So this is a debate ahead of the California primary. We obviously have

Humphrey and McGovern and then the mayor of Los Angeles. Sam Yorty was there as well and and then Chism. Chism is not in the same room as the three men.

She is joining from a studio in Brooklyn. Is that something we should read into or what do we need to know about the way debates happened in that time?

I mean I think the most important thing to read into it is that this all happened really last minute

and that the Chism campaign didn't have a ton of money.

Those were two of the biggest factors.

I mean, this thing was tied up in the courts for a while

and you were kind of worried about it running out the clock.

So it was decided just like kind of last minute

...