EDMONTON - Ed Stelmach didn't see the daycare moms coming.
The Alberta premier had no idea when he released the Progressive Conservative child care platform at a daycare centre in Red Deer that he was about to feel the wrath of parents fed up with both the lack of daycare space and the soaring cost of it.
One woman described how she couldn't afford to have a second child because of daycare costs. Another told the media she could barely feed her kids after paying the daycare bill and Stelmach's campaign promise would provide little in the way of relief.
Ron Glen, Stelmach's chief of staff and one of his closest advisers on the campaign for the March 3 provincial election, concedes that there have been some kinks for the Tories as they mount their first campaign with Stelmach as leader.
"We've got a brand new team, lots of new young people that are working on their first major campaign,'' Glen said in an interview. "But we do have some experienced people, so everyone's learning as we move along.''
The upside for the Tories, said political analyst David Taras, is that it probably doesn't matter.
"What surveys show is that many voters don't really key into the campaign until the last week,'' said Taras, a professor at the University of Calgary.
"So if you had a tough first week, that can be erased in the public mind if your campaign gets stronger and stronger.''
However, he cautions that if the mistakes continue, the public starts to put a picture together.
"To have this kind of week where it's just fumble after fumble, if this was football, the other team would have scored,'' he said.
"But there seems to be endless forgiveness for Conservatives in Alberta.''
The Tories have governed the province for more than 36 years, and there's no sign of the kind of seismic political shift that would be required to topple them.
The Stelmach campaign is markedly different from the "premier in a bubble'' approach that Ralph Klein's handlers took. Ordinary folks and especially the media had limited access to Klein during his last two election campaigns.
Stelmach has invited the media to tag along with his campaign tour and the people in the rooms when he makes announcements are not just Tory supporters.
At two events in the campaign's first week, women rose to their feet with pointed questions on daycare and seniors benefits. Instead of being confrontational, as Klein was with two disabled women during the 2004 campaign, Stelmach wanted to hear their concerns.
The women who criticized the daycare platform were later invited to speak with the premier and his staff in private. The premier discovered that several of them were paying their own health-care premiums of $1,056 a month. He then explained how they would benefit from his earlier campaign promise to phase out the premiums over four years.
"They said, `You know what, that's a bigger benefit to us than this targeted proposal on the tax credit side,''' said Glen. "Not all the moms at the daycare personally benefited from the announcement.''
Unexpected encounters with frustrated mothers and seniors weren't the only problems for the Tory election team.
The premier violated long-standing protocol when he kicked off the election campaign from the media room in the legislature on Monday. The next day, Stelmach surrounded himself with Edmonton-area Tory candidates in the foyer of a hospital _ a site that had been off limits to campaigners from other parties in the past.
The premier then proudly announced that a Conservative government would graduate 225 more doctors a year from Alberta's two major universities within four years. The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons quickly refuted the idea, explaining that only about 50 more medical graduates could be expected because of a lack of both space and clinical teachers.
Stelmach changed the announcement during an afternoon appearance in Calgary and replaced the word "graduate'' with the word "qualify.'' The difference, he said, was that the 225 number included foreign doctors who would be accredited in Alberta medical schools.
There didn't appear to be any major gains by the Liberals or New Democrats in the first week, but their campaigns had few if any glitches.
NDP deputy campaign director Lou Arab said the daycare announcement showed the Tories don't understand the real problems families face getting quality child care. He also said the message becomes clouded when the media focuses on the blunders, leaving Albertans with the impression that Stelmach's Tories "couldn't run a lemonade stand, never mind a government.''
NDP Leader Brian Mason got some positive press for his plan to cut Alberta's drug costs in half by having the province buy drugs in bulk.
Liberal Leader Kevin Taft also had a positive week, with a timely endorsement from Ron Wood, a former Calgary broadcaster who handled communications for Preston Manning while he led the federal Reform Party.
Liberal campaign manager Kieran Leblanc said the Tories appeared disorganized in the opening week. One of the pleasant surprises of Leblanc's week came in the form of an e-mail from a long-time Tory supporter.
"The person said, `I'm not voting Tory any more, I'm voting for Kevin.'''
The week ended with Tory organizers brushing off their mistakes and looking ahead, said one Tory insider.
Glen said Stelmach himself is having fun meeting people as he travels across Alberta, especially young people.
"We were in Airdrie the other day and a young high school student came up and said, `Can you sign my arm?''' he said. "The kids are great.''
