Excerpts of the Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy debate on Issues & Answers - 1st June 1968

Description Excerpts of the only Democratic debate between Senator Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy on ABC's 'Issues and Answers' that I could find online. Filmed at KGO-TV in San Francisco, California on June 1st 1968, replacing that Saturday night's television slot for the Hollywood Palace show (which is up there with the classic variety shows). The moderator was ABC TV anchor Frank Reynolds, alongside ABC news correspondent Bob Clark and ABC news political editor William (Bill) Lawrence.
(L-R) Lawrence, McCarthy, Reynolds, Kennedy, Clark.

The televised debate was the first and only official occurrence of both candidates going head-to-head in policies, records and issues. It came about during rigorous campaigning for both candidates throughout California, with Kennedy becoming near-ill in campaign stops following this appearance and McCarthy's event featuring Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Phil Ochs and Dick Van Dyke just days after this.

The debate was televised by American Broadcasting Co. and was slated to air at 7:30pm PST and 9:30PM EST. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was invited to the debate but he declined. McCarthy himself refused to consider the sixty minute discussion as a debate, saying Kennedy had opted for “a friendly sort of sit-down discussion” and shunned the traditional debate format.

Although Kennedy felt he was "indecisive and disappointing" after the debate, post-debate polls showed undecided voters favored him to McCarthy 2 to 1. In his hopes of trying to curb McCarthy's strength in the state, this debate was key in Kennedy's crucial California win. Kennedy was also the weakest candidate in South Dakota prior to the upcoming primaries. McCarthy's campaign in California was well-funded and organized and early on the primaries seemed to be a close one.

The states of California, New Jersey and South Dakota would vote on June 4th, the coming Tuesday; Kennedy won California with a 4-point margin and, South Dakota with 50% of all the votes (the rest being for LBJ and McCarthy, remarkably). McCarthy only won New Jersey, with a 5-point margin.

I've taken existing and available video sources and synced it up with the superior audio source, uploaded by theCarbonFreeze. She's uploaded two different audio sources of the debate. Otherwise, the footages used have been linked below (two from AP) and the photos at the end are from GettyImages. The Hollywood Palace video is from 1965, with Judy Garland hosting.

The AP footage, in black and white, is a badly-done kinescope which crops out too much and isn't matching in FPS with the monitor. It had its own audio but I had it upgraded.

If any more footage segments (god forbid, the full damn thing) is found, I will be taking this video down to unlisted and will be updating and reuploading this video.