Presidential Debate To Be Held At U. Mississippi
This story was written by Staff And Wire Reports, Daily Mississippian
This afternoon, the Commission on Presidential Debates officially announced the University of Mississippi would host the first debate of the 2008 Presidential Debates next fall.
The campus will hold the first debate, which is scheduled for Friday, September 26, 2008.
According to the Commission's official announcement, two other southern locations, Nashville and St. Louis, will also play host to one of the debates.
This will mark the first Presidential Debate for Mississippi and Ole Miss.
Ole Miss was selected from 19 other potential sites -- 14 of which were other colleges or universities -- by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
The event will be held in the 1,200-seat Gertrude Ford Performing Arts Center on the university's Oxford campus.
The city's 700 or so hotel rooms are inadequate to serve more than 4,000 visitors expected, so they will be shuttled to hotels in Tupelo, Batesville, Memphis, Grenada and other neighboring north Mississippi cities.
There will be three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate next year.
The other two presidential debates will be held on Oct. 7 at Belmont University in Nashville and on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
The vice-presidential debate will be held Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.
© 2007 Daily Mississippian via U-WIRE