With only five weeks remaining until the 2008 Presidential election, the two major-party candidates will meet in Oxford Friday night for the first of three televised debates. The subject of the debate, to be moderated by Jim Lehrer, host of the PBS show Newshour, will be foreign policy and national security.

Stephanie Meincke, director of the Mississippi Campus Compact, described the significance of the debate’s location further.

“I think it’s been talked about in terms of Ole Miss being the site 40 years ago of voter discrimination,” Meincke said, “and to be able to have the first debate there is an astounding sign of how far we’ve come as a nation.”

She added that statistics from the Mississippi Campus Compact Voter Registration and Engagement Project showed a steady rise in youth voters in Mississippi. Most recently, voter turnout increased to 52 percent in 2004 as compared to 43 percent in 2000.