The New York Daily News thinks Romney is among the first in this campaign to allude to the Bill Clinton sex scandal.

“One of the ways that you help instill, if you will, family values is by having a White House be a place that demonstrates family values,” Romney said. “And, you know, I think during the last Clinton presidency, the White House did not demonstrate that in a way that was helpful to our nation’s character.”

I heard from a Romney rival’s campaign staffer who thought that this statement in the debate was skating on thin ice:

And the idea that she could learn to be president, you know, as an internship just doesn’t make any sense.

Was the “intern” reference deliberate? Or was it a Freudian slip? Or are we just reading something into this?

At least one Republican campaign thinks rehashing Lewinsky is a horrible strategy for Republicans. Bill’s atrocious behavior stirred enormous public sympathy for Hillary. That scandal will be a decade old when the general election begins next year, and most voters are happy to keep it in the past. A certain number of voters recoiled from the scandal at the time, and punished the Republicans for seeking to punish the bad behavior, instead of brushing it under the rug the way the Democrats preferred. (It certainly didn’t help Republican candidates in 1998.) Women voters, in particular, may recoil if it appears Hillary is being blamed for her husband’s philandering.

There are ways to more subtly allude to voters’ memories of impeachment: “we don’t need all the drama the Clintons will bring back to the White House, we need a change in Washington, we need leadership not tainted by a thousand scandals,” etc.