Festival the Debate

Nothing says Debate like a good old fashion catfish fry and festival. Rock the Vote, today, organized a two stage hodown in Oxford, Mississippi on the Ole Miss campus in preparation for the debate extravaganza to unfold.

Word on the street was the free t-shirts and swag was the best. Who doesn't love a free shirt?

The other most common comment was about John McCain and the recet revelation that he was going to be attending. Lauren Hempkey is a strong supporter of Sen. McCain. She thought it was awesome they were having the debate because she was hoping it would bring some attention to Ole Miss, but said she would be really disappointed if Sen. McCain didn't show up.

The students have worked hard preparing the campus indeed the whole town for the media, campaigns, and eager and interested citizens that have ascended upon Oxford.

One such distinguished student is Nick Luckett. When I met Nick at the Republican Convention earlier this month he told me he went to Ole Miss and I eagerly wanted to hear about the work they'd been doing to prepare for the debate. At the time Nick was livid because students were only going to recieve a total of 50 tickets to the debate itself. Only 50!

But when I caught up with Nick today he said that number grew quickly to 150. They had many different activities to decide who got them. Different forms of quizes and bowls, and two lotteries - one for campus leaders and another for students.

Nick said the steering committee put in a lot of hard work to make sure everything ran smoothly. Having Sen. McCain say he was pulling out was not something those students wanted to hear.

"(They) were really upset to hear that John McCain might not come. A lot of us worked really hard, and we've been working for months and months. And our university has been working for a year to bring this debate here, and now for him to say he's not coming is like a slap in the face."

Ole Miss students Danelle and Chelsea were both supporting Obama in tonight's debate. That was the major reason that they thought Sen. McCain shouldn't even attend. They had heard by lunchtime that Sen. McCain was scheduled to attend but weren't sure if that was confirmed. Danelle felt like it was a sketchy thing to say. Chelsea agreed,

"Why say you're not going to come and then show up?"

"I think its pretty cool that Obama said he was going to be here even if there wasn't a decision," Danelle said.

Later in the afternoon, Josie and I met up downtown in Oxford for some awesome southern food at Ajax a diner on the square. From there it was to a coffee shop to upload our pictures and begin working with the videos we'd shot from the morning. It was there that we ran into a local reporter for the Daily Journal. He told us that tickets were so hard to come by that even the Chancellor of the College didn't get one. The governor did... but the Chancellor was still looking for ways to get in.