It's everywhere. Every corner you turn, every person you talk to...you can't escape it. We have banners, we panels, we even have coffee mugs! The enthusiasm and the energy we are putting into preparing and hosting the debate is astronomical. It's drawn an interesting comparison in my mind to another major event that took place this year.

I spent the summer studying in China. And although I was only in Beijing for two days after the opening ceremonies, I definitely got my fill of Olympic posters, commercials, merchandise, anything you name, they had an Olympics' version of it. The Olympics consumed the minds of just about every Chinese person I ran into. And to the Chinese, the Olympics was their opportunity to show the world just how far they had come. They were no long the backwards nation of the past; they had overcome obstacle upon obstacle and had emerged as one of the fastest developing countries on earth. Commentators have said that the Olympics progressed with surprising smoothness. The opening ceremonies alone were unrivaled by any previous and probably any future Olympics.

The Debate at Ole Miss oftentimes seems like our own little Olympics. Similar with the Chinese, I have heard many administrators and faculty describe the Debate as Ole Miss's chance to show itself to the nation. No telling how much we've already spent and done in comparison to the other universities who are hosting the other debates. Belmont University in Nashville and Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY are hosting the other presidential debates and Washington University in St. Louis, MO is hosting the vice presidential debate.

I was talking to the manager of the Ole Miss bookstore today. Most schools will stock some debate merchandise, but have a hard time selling it, the manager said. With Ole Miss though, the bookstore has sold out numerous times since the summer when they first began stocking Debate merchandise. The Presidential Debate Commission has been amazed just at the amount of merchandise - tshirts, hats, coffee mugs - that we have sold, he said.

There is one other main similarity that I find almost frighteningly shocking. There was a lot of pressure on China going into the Olympics. China has not had the cleanest record when it comes to civil liberties and human rights, and although it seems that China has made it through the Olympics without too, too big of a backlash, foreign reporters did not leave China's many civil injustices un-covered. 

I was talking with a faculty member on the Ole Miss debate commission. He is excited about the debate, but also holds a few reservations. One of the biggest fears of the Ole Miss administration is that reporters will come here and bring up some of Ole Miss's dark past - namely, the riots of 1962, when James Meredith first enrolled at the university, he said.

Some might think my comparison is a bit of a stretch, but I find too many similarities between Ole Miss and its hosting of the first presidential debate and what it means to the university and China and its hosting of the 2008 Olympics and what it meant to the Chinese. 

There's a lot of pressure on Ole Miss and Oxford going into this debate. Hopefully, all the time, money and energy we are spending on the hosting of this debate will pay off. Perhaps we will get positive media coverage, perhaps negative, and perhaps none at all. Regardless, Ole Miss is putting its all into the debate; it definitely is our own Olympic undertaking.