THE Republican presidential candidate, Mr Bob Dole, chided President Clinton for stealing his ideas, as outlined in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
"I'm afraid to leave my speeches lying around. I'm afraid he'll grab them and go out and give them," Mr Dale told a crowd of boisterous Republican faithfuls in San Luis Obispo, a California town 256 km north west of Los Angeles.
"Everything I'm for, he's for," Mr Dale (73) said, repeating a long standing criticism by Republicans.
Among other measures out lined in his hour long speech in Chicago, Mr Clinton promised tax breaks for property owners and for parents with children in university, a more moderate version of Mr Dole's recent proposal for a capital gains tax break.
Mr Clinton also promised to develop a cost effective national missiles weapons system, shadowing a Republican plan, and vowed to pursue a clampdown on teenage smoking, apparently in response to Republican criticism that teenage drug addiction has increased during his term of office.
Mr Dale dug into Mr Clinton, blaming his administration for silently tolerating drug use and said a return to the "just say no" philosophy of the former Republican president, Mr Ronald Reagan, was needed.
Casting the November 5th election as one of competing philosophies, Mr Dale said: "The key is very, very simple. They trust the government and we trust you . . . We trust the people of the United States of America."
In Santa Barbara, when he was asked about the surprise resignation of Mr Dick Morris, Mr Dole said: "Morris has been trying to make President Clinton a Republican, now maybe he'll revert to the liberal Democrat that he [Clinton] really is."
Mr Dale later told ABC's Barbara Walters the resignation could "change the direction of the campaign," noting that liberals had not been too happy with Mr Morris's assessment that Mr Clinton had to move to the centre to win the election.
When speaking privately to a campaign worker about Mr Morris, apparently not realising a radio microphone nearby was live, Mr Dole said: "It says something about who you surround yourself with, doesn't it?"
But publicly, Mr Dale aides went to considerable efforts to not be seen taking advantage of the Morris story.
Mr Dole's press secretary, Mr Nelson Warfield, said Mr Dale "takes the long view of this sort of stuff and I think it's fair to say he feels some degree of sympathy for someone to be thrust into the national spotlight with this sort of scandal."