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Ifill is set to host the VP debate Thursday.

(CNN) - Controversy swirled over VP debate moderator Gwen Ifill one day before the vice presidential face-off between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, after new scrutiny was drawn to her upcoming book about Barack Obama.

In stories published Wednesday, conservative commentators noted that "Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama" – first announced several months ago – is slated to be released around the inauguration of the next president in January 2009, less than four months from today.

"...as if we needed any further evidence of a jaw-dropping double standard, we have to contemplate the sheer impossibility that someone who wrote a positive biography of McCain being chosen to moderate a debate," wrote Jim Geraghty on the National Review's Web site Wednesday.

The book has not yet been released to critics or the general public. Ifill talked about the upcoming book in a Washington Post interview in August, before the terms of the debate were finalized. In her only pre-debate interview, the PBS journalist told the Post's Howard Kurtz, a CNN contributor, that her book would cover new black political leaders like Obama, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Watch: Kurtz on Ifill

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McCain and Obama will square off Friday night.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

OXFORD, Mississippi (CNN) - On our entire way down here on the bus, we’ve been stopping to encourage people to think about what would happen if, on the night of the first debate, they were somehow allowed to stand up and ask John McCain and Barack Obama any question they wanted.

Jim Lehrer of PBS will be the only person asking questions tonight– if, at the end of this bizarre campaign week, the debate takes place at all.

Yet the questions we’ve found by the side of the road– questions devised spontaneously by the people with whom we’ve talked– have something about them that is intriguing. Maybe it’s because the men and women who want to ask them had never considered what it would be like to speak directly to the next president.

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Arcaro Conner and Mike Diltz

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

BATESVILLE, Mississippi– John McCain’s request to postpone tomorrow night’s presidential debate at the University of Mississippi seems to be turning into something less than a trumpets-blaring triumph for him down here.

The state of Mississippi was waiting, with great pride, to host the first debate between McCain and Barack Obama– and the people who live here seem understandably unhappy that, after months of planning, this uncertainty has been thrown at them at the last moment.

Last night and this morning we reported on conversations with Batesville residents–one of them an avid McCain-Palin supporter– who are disappointed and even angry that McCain may not show up tomorrow night. And a conversation today with two men here who have their own theories about the possible no-show provided more viewpoints on how this is going over in northern Mississippi.

“McCain saying that he thinks it’s a good idea not to come to the debate– that’s what you call running from a challenge,” said Arcaro Conner, 45, a maintenance worker. “I don’t think he wants to debate Obama– I think he’ll talk at Obama from a distance, but he won’t talk to him to his face in the same room.”

“He doesn’t want to face the music," said Mike Diltz, 45, also a maintenance worker. “The American people want to hear from these two men. So why would you say that you might not show up?”

McCain’s stated reason is that he believes it is more important to be in Washington, working on a solution to the economic crisis, than to be in Mississippi for a campaign debate.

“Come on,” said Arcaro Conner. “That’s like a football team that says they’re not going to play because it looks like rain. It’s not the rain the football team is worried about– it’s the team they see waiting for them across the field.”

“This whole thing about having to get an economic deal worked out over the weekend,” Mike Diltz said. “That’s like the pitch for used cars– ‘You’ve got to buy this car by the weekend, or it will be gone. I just heard from a customer who liked this car, and he might be coming back, so you’d better buy it right now.'

“What’s the rush? In around 40 days, we’re going to know who the new president will be, so why are they telling us that they have to rush to a decision right now? It took them eight years to get in this mess, and now, right before the debate, McCain is saying he doesn’t want to come because they have to fix it by the end of the weekend?”

Commentators and political analysts have been saying that McCain’s proposal to postpone the debate came as a big surprise.

“No one I talked to was surprised,” Arcaro Conner said. “Everyone I called last night said they knew all along there wasn’t going to be a debate.”

Really? That sounds unlikely– his friends really weren’t surprised?

“Not at all,” Conner said. “He doesn’t want to face Obama.”

Whatever you may think of the reasoning of Arcaro Conner and Mike Diltz, the one thing that seems beyond contradiction today is that people in Mississippi, and at the University of Mississippi, have a right to be frustrated at the prospect of the diminution of their big night during the biggest presidential campaign in recent memory.

“A couple weeks ago, all that John McCain wanted was to get on the stage with Obama," Conner said. “Remember? ‘Let’s the two of us go around the country and talk from the same stages.‘

“Well. . . here’s his chance. Is he going to show up?”

Listen to Chris Patterson and Pride of the South drum section rehearse.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

OXFORD, Mississippi– Tomorrow night’s presidential debate at the University of Mississippi, if it happens, is supposed to be a wonderful and memorable moment for the students here– but let’s keep things in perspective.

There are memorable moments for college students– and then there are memorable moments.

We heard very loud noises from outside the bus where we’re parked on the Ole Miss campus. “Very loud” is an understatement.

We opened the door of the bus– and found the percussion section of the school’s marching band, pounding away on their drums and clanging away on their cymbals, just a few feet from us.

I can assure you that this was not their way of welcoming us to the campus. As a matter of fact, they seemed a little annoyed– politely annoyed, if there is such a thing, but annoyed nonetheless.

“It’s kind of an inconvenience, having to practice out here in this parking lot,” said Chris Patterson, 18, a bass drum player who is a freshman. “We can‘t get in the Band Hall.“

He said that the reason he and his more than 200 fellow members of the University of Mississippi Marching Band, which is formally and famously referred to as the Pride of the South, could not get into their building was that it has been converted, this week, into a workspace for reporters and television producers who are covering the debate.

I asked him if he was impressed that the first debate had been scheduled at Ole Miss, out of all the possible sites in the country.

He said something, which there was no way in the world I could hear. These people were really slamming their instruments by this point.

So we walked closer to the bus, which served as something of a buffer, and he said, referring to the debate: “It’s a good thing.”

But the fact is, when you’re a member of the Pride of the South, accustomed to performing in front of more than 60,000 people in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium every football Saturday, a political debate, no matter how historic, is not what you’re going to most fondly recall about your years on campus.

Rebekah Tettleton, 20, a sophomore cymbals player, answered courteously when I asked her what she thought of the debate being held here:

“It’s fine.”

She said she that if the debate is held as planned, she would watch it on television tomorrow night if she could, but she knew she was scheduled to work a shift in the campus bookstore.

At least I think she said that. I asked her how she could keep her sanity with all this noise around her all the time.

She pointed to the side of her head and said: “Earplugs.”

Julius Booth

Julius Booth, 19, a sophomore bass drum player, was not playing a drum in the parking lot. He was, in fact, not playing anything.

I asked him why.

“My drum is broken,” he said. “I hit it too hard.”

He said that he would have a new one by the time of the next home game. He is an African-American member if the University of Mississippi marching band, something that at one time in this state would have seemed beyond the realm of possibility. He said that the thrilling feeling of marching into that stadium was difficult to adequately describe: “Oh, man, the crowds, the sound from the stands. . .they go crazy. What it does to me when I hear all those people cheering. . . .”

One of the band’s assistant directors– Nelson Rodriguez, 24, a graduate student– said that being a member of the Pride of the South was such a meaningful part of these students’ lives because “before they came to Ole Miss, they had never played in front of so many people before, and after they leave Ole Miss, they will never play in front of so many people again.”

It has thrown their routine off this week, having to move out of the Band Hall and cut down their number of practices, he said. But he, and they, understand the reason: a presidential debate is a very important thing.

As important to these young men and women as being full-fledged members of the Pride of the South?

He smiled.

“What do you think?” he said.