This writer interned in a Republican Party office during the impeachment saga. A man would call every day and inquire into the sex lives of whomever answered the phone, saying if it was appropriate for Ken Starr to ask Bill Clinton, he could ask us.

Not all Republican presidential candidates think this is as promising a line of attack as Trump apparently does. “It wouldn’t be my focus because I think the American people have litigated how they feel about President Clinton and his personal conduct and his personal life,” Chris Christie said. “And I don’t think we get anywhere as Republicans by doing that.”

If anything, the country is more permissive in its attitudes about adult consensual sex than during the 1990s, when conservative complaints about Bill’s libido first backfired. Same-sex marriage is now a constitutional right rather than something most liberal Democrats (including the Clintons) oppose. Most Americans disapprove of adultery but consider it a private matter.

Note the word “consensual.”