AS the Reform Party candidate Ross Perot begins to edge up in the opinion polls, President Clinton has turned down an invitation for a TV debate with him on allegations of ethical abuses.
The latest USA Today CNN poll shows Mr Perot at 11 points, his highest since the poll began, while Mr Clinton leads Mr Dole by 49 percentage points to 35. These findings show why Mr Dole vainly tried last week to get Mr Perot to retire from the race and endorse him instead.
Mr Perot offered to share the hour he has already booked on ABC network next Monday, the eve of the election, so Mr Clinton could answer "the criminal and ethical charges pending against him, his wife and his business associates".
The White House predictably turned down the offer saying that the president's schedule was set until election day".
"Where is the outrage in America?" cried Bob Dole in frustration at an election rally in Houston. He accused Mr Clinton of perusing confidential FBI files on his political opponents. "But nobody seems to care in the media. Nobody seems to care."
Mr Dole was publicly bewailing the failure of the "character" issue to catch fire in this election. "Character" is the shorthand for the ethical shortcomings and scandals which have accumulated around the Clinton White House during his first term in office, charges which, needless to say, are strongly rejected by the Democrats.
Mr Dole's frustration is understandable. Poll after poll shows he is trusted by far more of the electorate than Mr Clinton. But when it comes to their choice of the next president, the voters give Mr Clinton a double digit lead over Mr Dole.
Mr Dole was initially wary of raising the character issue in his campaign and his running mate, Jack Kemp, made it clear from the start that he would not play the "attack dog" role either. But, as Mr Dole's 15 per cent tax cut proposal and his efforts to brand Mr Clinton as a "tax and spend liberal" failed to make an impact, the "character" issue could no longer be kept out of the Republican campaign.
A distinction was made between the president's "private" character, or personal life, which was to be off limits, and "public" character which was a legitimate concern. In the 1992 election, Mr Clinton had successfully overcome the "womanising" allegations when Hillary Clinton public fly stood by him as he confessed he had caused "pain" in his marriage, so there was little appetite among Republicans for reopening the "sleaze factor".
The Republican "negative" television ads did, however, go after the president for being soft on drugs. They replayed an MTV interview where he laughingly admitted he would like to try marijuana again after failing to inhale the first time. But the Democrats hit back at Mr Dole's long time support for the tobacco industry.
The complexities of the Whitewater affair and its cluster of investigations by congressional committees and special prosecutors were seen as a turn off for the electorate. But Mr Dole seized on a hint that the president could pardon certain key figures who might have incriminating information and he demanded a public assurance that there would be no pardons, a demand repeated by the New York Times in its editorial endorsing Mr Clinton for president.
Dubious Democratic party fund raising from foreign companies and the American Asian community gave Mr Dole a fresh character issue on which to pursue the president as the campaign entered its last phase. Unfortunately for Mr Dole, there were some fund raising skeletons in the Republican cupboard as well.