The Governor of Mississippi came to town to insist that the presidential debate was still on, as the catering vans rolled in and the red, white and blue bunting was raised. Just 50 feet behind him technicians tested the microphones on two empty podiums, wondering aloud with an almost gallows humour: “Is McCain actually going to show up?”

The University of Mississippi has had a controversial and storied past in its 160-year history, but nothing could compare with the drama and surreal nature yesterday of a college campus, the town it sits in, and this Deep South state going full-steam ahead for a pivotal election event without knowing if it will turn into a nationally televised evening of Barack Obama debating in an empty space.

In a game of brinkmanship that was tied inextricably to the drama of the financial bailout talks unfolding in Washington, John McCain continued to insist that he would not turn up to the first presidential debate unless a deal were reached in Congress on a financial rescue package. Last night the prospect of the event taking place with both candidates improved amid signs that a deal was at hand.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, repeated his assertion that he would be standing at his podium at “Ole Miss” – as the university is better known – at 9pm tonight, deal or no deal. Mr McCain had declared that this was a time for leadership, and not politics. Mr Obama’s aides called it a stunt and sent press releases pointing out that on the day of the third Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960 Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk at the UN and a bomb exploded in Times Square in New York. It was the latest strange twist in what has been the longest, and one of the most confounding, White House races ever.

As the podiums were receiving a final polish, exasperated officials from the university took to the airwaves to say that they had been preparing for this big event for 18 months, and had invested $5.5 million (£3 million) in it – a figure that people here found easier to get a handle on than the $700 billion being demanded by President Bush to rescue Wall Street.

At trestle tables volunteers sat ready to hand out 3,000 press credentials. Roads throughout the area had been closed down. The Secret Service checked for bombs. In Oxford’s town square, around its Confederate war memorial, shop windows were decorated with “Debate ’08!” The headline in The Daily Mississippian read, above a picture of Mr McCain: “Will he show?”Assuming that he will, their encounter will be a critical moment.

The perceived winners of televised presidential debates, in every case since the first one, held between Rich-ard Nixon and John F. Kennedy 44 years ago, have gone on to win the election. Neither Mr McCain nor Mr Obama can afford a blunder in such a close race this year. Elections have been won and lost on debate performances. In 1980, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan met for one face-off before polling day, essentially tied in the polls. The country was desperate for change, but unsure about Mr Reagan. He was brilliant. Nine days later, he won a landslide victory.

Mr Obama’s priority is to pass the threshold as a potential commander-in-chief. He has never mastered the debate format, and can be too professorial and meandering in his answers. Mr McCain is a pugnacious, combative performer, most animated on the subject of foreign policy. He can overreach into derision and sarcasm – and, at 72, must avoid anything that could be interpreted as a sign that he is too old for the Oval Office.

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