by Laurel Wamsley

The mood in Oxford is like a smaller version of an Ole Miss gameday, but with a bit more doubt in the air. Locals and students are excited, and people are filling the square to watch the debate on the big screen. (Students are filling the campus Grove, where Rock the Vote has had bands playing all day, and the sidewalks are lined with booths promoting clean coal or alternative energies, in addition to the student groups for Obama and McCain.) Folks described Oxford, and the rest of northern Mississippi, as essentially Republican, though Oxford in particular is seen as an open-minded place where people can talk about differing ideas.

I grabbed lunch of fried catfish and sweet potato casserole at Ajax Diner on the town square, and politics was all that anyone wanted to talk about. People walked up to me and asked to be interviewed, or volunteered their friends to talk to me, or said they'd been interviewed by Fox News last night.

Security around the debate hall is very tight, and while it's easy to get out, it takes a very long walk down Jackson Avenue to get back inside the bubble. I talked to some folks selling Obama wares outside a barbershop/bail bonds store with a big yellow sign proclaiming "Obama-Land", and a woman called after me, saying she had a song to sing about Obama.

Here she is, Pat Ford Bethel of Memphis, Tennessee: