Alberta election 2015: #MakeRobCare on leaders debate

Rob Lewis sat down last night and did something new: he watched a leadersdebate.

The leaders of the fourmain political parties squared off on TV in a fiery debateThursday evening.

• Tweetyour own ideas to #MakeRobCare and let us know why he should vote

Rob, 34, is ajunior high school teacher and star of CBC Calgary's #MakeRobCare campaign anelection series designed to getan otherwise ambivalent voter,interested in the election and out to the ballot box.

He spoke with the CalgaryEyeopeneron Fridayabouthis reactionto the debate.

On watching the debate

• "It was my first one that I've ever watched through. I can see why I never really watch debates."
• "It helped me divide out the parties:You could see who was strong, who not so much, who was organised, who repeated themselves over and over."
• "I think the debate hinged on [Rachel]Notleyand [Jim]Prentice going back and forth. I thought they did a decent job of holding each other accountable."

On the parties

• On the Wildrose: "Wild Rose is off the table for me. That was an embarrassment. I honestly thought the CD was skipping inside his player because [Brian Jean]kept repeating the same thing over and over again. 'We won't raise your taxes.'Even when the question had nothing to do with that."
• On the Liberal Party: "[Party Leader DavidSwann] did an OK job. He got an opportunity to speak but he didn't say a lot."
• On the NDP:"[LeaderRachel Notley]is a strong woman, very intelligent, and very well spoken. I do like the way she approached the question and how she tried to ground things in evidence as best she could."
• On the Alberta PC Party: "I did see that Prentice hung by the things that look good in his budget. Teachers will maintain their jobs. But he didn't want to address the fact that we're not going to fund any of the classrooms for the students. And 'we're going to build new schools'but we're not going to have any staff to go in them."

On deciding how to vote

• "I'm typically more of a vote-for-leader-vote-for-partykind of person. I don't tend to think on the MLA level. Now having gone out of my way to meet the candidates, it's added more to the puzzle."
• "In one case, the MLA did a great job and the leader not so much and in another case, the reverse."