University of Mississippi. Dept. of Archives and Special Collections.

In 2003, the University of Mississippi (UM) considered applying to host a presidential debate in 2004. However, since the election contest would involve an incumbent president, the stringency of Secret Service requirements was too prohibitive. Instead, university administrators pursued the possibility of hosting a debate during the 2008 election. Representatives from the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates visited the campus to determine the feasibility of the site and encouraged the university to make a formal application.

In November 2007, the Commission announced that the University of Mississippi would host the first presidential debate on 26 September 2008. Soon afterwards, the university administration requested faculty, staff, and students to develop academic courses and programming related to the debate and the election. In the end, the university officially sponsored over ninety events and nineteen courses.

In March 2008, John McCain became the clear frontrunner of the Republican Party, while Barack Obama secured enough delegates in June to gain the Democratic nomination.

Originally, the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates selected domestic policy as the topic of the debate at UM. However, a few weeks prior to the event, both candidates and the Commission agreed to switch the topic to foreign policy and national security. Two days prior to the September 26th debate, McCain announced that he would suspend his campaign and return to Washington DC to concentrate on the financial crisis and to help craft a legislative bailout for banks. However, McCain reversed his decision on the day of the debate, arriving in Oxford to participate in the verbal contest with Obama moderated by PBS's Jim Lehrer. Lehrer spent the first thirty minutes of the debate on the current financial crisis and the national economy.

In the Spring of 2008, the Archives and Special Collections distributed a memorandum on the creation of a Presidential Debate Collection to all members of the university's Debate Steering Committee. On 23 October 2008, Special Collections sponsored a Brown Bag program entitled: "History Lives in Mississippi: Creating the Presidential Debate Collection." Dr. Andy Mullins, Executive Assistant to the Chancellor and chair of the Debate Steering Committee, discussed the university's application and planning for the debate, while Dr. Andy Harper of the Center for Documentary Projects described his interactions with the media and played footage from a future documentary on the debate. General publicity invited audience members to bring any debate-related material they wished to donate to the collection. Members of the Steering Committee, contacts for debate-related events, and faculty who taught debate-related courses received a letter personally inviting them to attend and contribute.

From the description of Presidential Debate Collection, 2007-2009. (University of Mississippi). WorldCat record id: 370477903