This week marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of an episode that led to a sitting president admitting his guilt to a felony, a first in America’s history. In the late 1990s, former President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal involving a young lady from Arkansas named Paula Jones.

Clinton pleaded guilty to lying under oath, thus avoiding a trial by paying $850,000 for the settlement. Today, a sex scandal case involving Stormy Daniels has former President Donald Trump on trial for a far lesser offense – falsifying business records (Trump allegedly paid $130,000 to Daniels in so-called “hush money”).

Now, the liberal media is attempting to persuade the public that if Trump is declared guilty in this case, President Joe Biden will cruise to a second term.

In poll after poll, they ask voters the usual push question: “As a supporter of Trump, would a Trump conviction change your support for him?”

It is the normal anti-candidate question that has been asked since political polling started. Why? Because that is the card/tactic used at the end of a campaign to turn a losing candidate into a winning one. It has worked for decades.

Today Biden and Trump are essentially tied in the race for the presidency if elections were held today (national polls all seem to be within the margin of error). However, Trump is leading in nearly every key battleground state. “Danger lights” are flashing for Democrats and it shows daily on the faces of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Believe it or not, Biden and his team are still trying to convince Democrats to keep him on as the nominee (conventions are months away) under the theory, backed by polls, that after a Trump conviction in the Stormy Daniels case, Trump’s popularity and political support would decline.

Well, not so fast.

Clinton did not go to jail for his admitted felony. He stayed in the White House. Ironically, in a poll conducted shortly after he left the presidency, no president has been more popular, deemed more favorable, at a comparable departure time from office.

You may ask, how is that possible?

The American people are not stupid. They can separate personal issues from issues that affect their lives and the nation. Clinton, whether you like him or not, was a good president. He was smart, had good instincts, and was a strong leader. He also had a talented cabinet collaborating with him.

America would welcome a return of the Bill Clinton era from so many perspectives. We would have saved trillions of dollars on our national defense as 9/11 would merely be a day on the calendar, not a somber day for all Americans to remember. The vicious attack on American soil would not have happened. There would be no cabinet position or department called Homeland Security. The country was safe and secure under Clinton.

We would not have deficit spending as we would be “balancing our budget.” We would not have an ever growing $34 trillion national debt. We would not have the two wars that we are financing. The economy would not be riddled with inflation. And possibly via the use of NAFTA enhancements, we would not have a border crisis with Mexico. I could go on.

In fact, instead of the Paula Jones sex scandal causing Clinton’s demise it resulted in the demise of the folks who falsely pushed to make his personal matter the “worst thing” to happen to America in a century. The impeachment crowd led by then Speaker Newt Gingrich bit the dust. It was Gingrich who resigned from office.

So as the Democrats are preparing to pop the champagne bottles for a Trump conviction on something, anything, the sex scandal case to date is slowly backfiring.

In successive campaigns, we have seen one guy win the presidency while campaigning from his basement in 2020, and now we may see another guy win the presidency while campaigning from a courtroom.

Let us look at how the two cases are similar.

With the turmoil going on in the United States and around the world, our media is focused on “hush money” payments made seven years ago to a porn star. No, you cannot make this stuff up.

Clinton did not have an election to deal with at the time, however. But North Carolina Senator John Edwards paid for the silence of a young lady during an election season and the courts exonerated him.

In both the Clinton and Edwards cases the family concerns, especially the concerns of their wives, were deemed as the motivating factor for their actions.

We can get distracted easily with salacious sex stories.

Here is another classic example: The GOP lost a Senate race in Illinois in 2004 due largely to a salacious sex scandal.

When it became known through divorce records that the leading Republican candidate for the Illinois Senate, Jack Ryan, was into sex clubs and strongly encouraged his wife’s participation, he abruptly dropped out of the race. The Illinois Republican Party had to scramble to find a replacement.

The problem was that the man they found at the 11th hour was from Maryland and had to rent an apartment in Illinois. Thus, a previously little-known state legislator who had badly lost when running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives easily went on to become a U.S. Senator from Illinois. His name was Barack Obama.

So sex scandals can play well for Democrats. In six months, Biden and the Democrats are counting on it.

Gary Franks served three terms as U.S. representative for Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years and New England’s first Black member of the House. Host: podcast “We Speak Frankly.”  @GaryFranksTribune News Service