On August 20, shortly after the film crew incident and documentary, Klein uncharacteristically appeared at the morning CFCN news meeting and announced he would run for Mayor against Alger. Klein's campaign started on rocky footing, he had little funds and limited knowledge of how to run a campaign or organize volunteers. He hired his friend Webster MacDonald, a lawyer, and labour organizer Ted Takacs to run co-manage his campaign, but neither was particularly adept. Finally he convened a group of 20 of his friends to discuss moving to the Alderman ticket, and after convincing Klein to continue to run for Mayor, they formed what became known as the ""Klein Gang"" a group of diehard supports which remained with him throughout his political career. Shortly afterwards he opened his campaign office in a small space donated by local businessman Jack Singer and his campaign began to take off. It was in this office he first met Rod Love, a recent University of Calgary political science dropout. Love had initially offered to work for Alger's campaign, but was not offered a position he was interested in. The Klein campaign continued to grow, although remained strained financially, with Klein only raising a total of $22,000. In the week before the election Klein's public position improved as many estimated he was neck and neck with Alger, and ahead of the third candidate, Alderman Peter Petrasuk. Alger the incumbent had accumulated $150,000 for the election, had strong support in the Chamber of Commerce, and a clean name. His other opponent, Petrasuk was a prominent lawyer with a large ethnic voter base and significant fundraising capabilities. Klein sought an endorsement from former Mayor Sykes who still held considerable sway amongst voters, Sykes declined as he had previously promised the other candidates he would not endorse any candidate, but agreed to an interview which he would say that Klein stood a chance in the election. The final mayoral debate took place 36 hours before the polls opened, with Alger and Petrasuk battling over rising budgets while Klein ignored the topics and spoke of accountability, open government and making Calgarians proud of the city.