No punches sent Stelmach's way.

This is from the Edmonton Sun. As the article points out, the other parties ganged up on Stelmach. No punches or not many landed apparently.
From media reports I have read Stelmach is supposed to be a bumbling debater but if this report is at all accurate he must have improved. The Liberal opposition leader does not come out looking too well in this account. No doubt Alberta bloggers who heard the debate may have different ideas.

February 22, 2008
No punches sent Stelmach's way
Leaders debate no slugfest
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN
fctAdTag("bigbox",MyGenericTagVar,1);

If this was a standard house- brand Alberta election TV debate, there's no doubt that PC Leader Ed Stelmach won the contest last night big-time.
Mainly, the gang-up didn't work, the four other provincial leaders - including Wildrose Alliance's Paul Hinman who used the provincewide TV hook-up to "introduce" himself to Albertans - didn't lay a glove on Steady Eddie, just as his predecessor Ralph Klein was able to dodge and weave through earlier debates.
NO ORDINARY GABFEST
But this wasn't an ordinary made-for-TV gabfest where the premier could snooze through the proceedings.
Simply reciting his accomplishments into the record since winning the PC leadership 14 months ago may not have been enough to convince a large number of unconvinced Albertans that he - or any of the others - is the best man for the job.
Which is the subplot of the whole election campaign, where 69% of Albertans responding to the Ipsos Reid midway poll said they would be simply "making the best choice from the options available."
In other words: None of the above.
And after an hour and a half of airtime on three networks, I suspect that the same "whatever" factor still hangs over the election.
The pols aren't all to blame here. The panel of "journalists" was strictly amateur hour.
Rarely did they wander beyond the predictable health care-infrastructure-environment issues where the fearless foursome could regurgitate their pat campaign stump answers.
But clearly Albertans wanted more than that. They needed one of the four stuffed suits to stick out, take control of the debate and answer the burning question of the 2008 campaign: Who are these guys?
That question never got answered.
Instead, it was NDP Leader Brian Mason's pitch about "being on the side of ordinary families," mainly because the PC and Liberals are "so closely tied" to corporations because they take donations from them.
Hinman's claim to being the "true conservative alternative" is based largely on his pitch to roll back Stelmach's royalty reforms.
The premier stuck to his "practical, achievable, fiscally responsible plan," while Taft continued his belief that "holding the government accountable" was the central theme of the election.
He also explored his theory that the government is secretly awash in cash and the Liberals have a magic spending button that will unlock it.
STELMACH SCORES
Sure, there were a few moments. Stelmach scored big when he talked of his "decisive leadership" when challenging growth, "not some warmed- over '70s socialist policy."
Strangely, he never raised the ghost of the "Trudeau Liberals" like he has been doing recently in his stump speeches.
Mason pinned Taft good during a set-to over climate change where the Liberal leader claimed emission caps are a "big issue in the campaign" and Alberta is going to get "moved down."
The NDP leader jumped in and reminded Taft that his Liberal MLAs argued against slapping hard caps on Alberta industry during a debate in the legislature, at which point Taft appeared to come unglued.
Taft also used the word "crisis" a couple of times too many during the debate, as though Alberta had turned into a mini Haiti.
At one time during the health-care portion, he actually blurted "people are dying, Mr. Stelmach."
Which was once again way over the top.
But probably the biggest stretch of all was a 50-something fellow with a talk-down-to-you-voice claiming he was the messenger of change.
The best Stelmach could show was that he wasn't the blundering bumpkin that his incompetent campaign team has turned him into.
And that he has a pretty good grasp of the subject of government.
Stelmach also got a good one-off when he stung Mason with "Brian, I know it's very easy to predict the past."
Then he reminded the others that 600,000 new Albertans have arrived here "because there is hope and there are jobs."
And that's about as good as it got.
//