Just weeks before the 1998 midterm elections, Republicans in the House, led by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, voted to begin a formal impeachment inquiry into then-President Bill Clinton.
At the time, many Republicans felt that they were riding a wave of political momentum that would carry their party to significant gains in the House, but that did not come to pass.
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In Fox Nation's docu-serious "Scandalous: The Clintons," which chronicles the political drama that enveloped Washington during the 1990s -- eventually leading to the first impeachment of an American president in 130 years, political experts and politicians said that the GOP impeachment push turned out to be a political blunder.
In the run-up to the November 1998 election, the Republican National Committee spent millions of dollars on last-minute television ads that showed two people talking about President Clinton over the kitchen table.
The script of the advertisement has one woman asking her friend, "What'd you tell your kids?"
The other woman responded, "I didn't know what to say."
"It's wrong. For seven months he lied to us," the first woman insisted.
The ad blitz did not go as planned.
"What turned out and what I didn't know would happen and I'm not sure anybody did, was that the impeachment move by the Republicans backfired," said Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume in the Fox Nation show.
On election night, Democrats picked up five House seats and the balance of power in the Senate remained unchanged.
Hume continued, "Times were good. You know Clinton had done the things that got him re-elected and they were still in place and the economy was doing as well as ever. And this story did not offend the country the way we all -- more or less -- assumed it would. It just didn't."
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Fox News contributor Mara Liasson added, "Bill Clinton's presidency was a period of peace and prosperity. That's the bottom line for presidents... You could draw a comparison between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, people understand their faults, they like them anyway."
Senator Lindsey Graham R-Sc., also reflected on those turbulent times, saying that he believes the Republicans were seen as overreaching and the American people were not behind them.
"People saw us as a majority that kind of got out of control. Impeachment is a political exercise as much as it is a legal exercise, and it changed the standing of the Republican majority," said Graham.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University, which was conducted in the days leading up to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement of an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, found that 37% of the public supports the impeachment and removal of the president, while 57% oppose it.
To see all of the "Scandalous: The Clintons," visit Fox Nation and join today.
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