By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com 

INDIANAPOLIS – My Republican friend was so certain.

“Impeachment will backfire on the Democrats,” he said. “Just like it did on us when we tried it with Clinton.”

My friend isn’t the only one who thinks that way. Many of his fellow Republicans and more than a few Democrats feel that impeachment will boomerang on whoever tries it.

Because that’s what they’ve been told for years.

The conventional wisdom is that impeachment hurt Republicans and helped Democrats 20 years ago.

Maybe yes.

Maybe no.

It is true that during the impeachment battle involving President Bill Clinton two decades ago that Clinton’s poll numbers were strong throughout.

But after that, things become more complicated. That’s the way it is with history. Its lessons rarely are clear or simple.

That’s why anyone using history as a guide should do so with caution. History is good for explaining how we got to the moment we’re experiencing. It’s less good at predicting what will come in the days ahead.

That is particularly true when it comes to comparing Clinton’s impeachment and trial in the U.S. Senate and the similar fate that now is inevitable for President Donald Trump.

There are parallels between the two situations, to be sure.

America during Clinton’s presidency was, like America now, a divided land led by a man who exacerbated the divisions. Clinton, like Trump, was a leader who inspired fierce devotion or fiery opposition, with little in between. And Clinton’s impeachment, like Trump’s, was largely partisan warfare.

Beyond there, things get murkier.

When Republicans sought to impeach Clinton two decades ago, he enjoyed public approval ratings of more than 60 percent. At one point, during the impeachment battle, Clinton’s public approval number climbed to higher than 70 percent.

At no point did public approval for his impeachment climb above 44 percent.

Trump, on the other hand, so far is the first president since modern polling began to never achieve a public approval number at or above 50 percent while in office. And the poll numbers supporting his impeachment and removal from office hover just on either side of 50 percent.

This is where things get interesting.

While Clinton’s numbers stayed strong all through his impeachment crisis, they dropped as soon as his trial in the U.S. Senate ended and he was acquitted.

That’s because the focus of the national discussion changed. It stopped being about whether a U.S. president should be removed from office. And it started being about whether the American people approved of how Clinton had conducted himself.

It turned out that many people who thought impeachment too drastic a remedy for the problem also really didn’t like the way Clinton had dishonored the presidency. Once the threat of his removal was passed, they felt free to say so.

When the next election rolled around, even though America was enjoying the sort of peace and prosperity that generally rewards the party in power, Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, lost the White House to Republican George W. Bush.

Gore blamed his defeat on the lingering resentment over Clinton’s moral and ethical lapses – what pundits at the time referred to as “Clinton fatigue,” exhaustion with all the drama surrounding a president who had to be the center of attention everywhere and all the time.

Does that sound like anyone else we know?

Let’s be clear. There were other factors that led to Gore’s defeat. He was not an electrifying candidate. And the Electoral College, then as now, gave disproportionate weight to rural, conservative voters in presidential elections – which is why Gore lost the race even though he captured more popular votes than Bush did.

But the reality is that fighting to protect Bill Clinton had costs for Democrats. What should have been a slam-dunk election for them turned out to be a nail-biter, one that they lost.

Does that mean Donald Trump’s impeachment will prove to be a disaster for Republicans?

Not necessarily.

But it does mean that the outcome to this moment in our national story is a lot less clear than some like to think.

History is just that.

History.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is the director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.