Until this week, it seemingly was a settled question. Bill Clinton’s soaring popularity suggested the public had come to terms with the messier aspects of his private conduct — the Monica Lewinsky scandal and other personal peccadilloes — and an unspoken consensus had formed around the notion that the former president’s behavior wasn’t germane to Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

Then Donald Trump, for whom no topic is ever off limits, succeeded in re-opening the discussion.

On Sunday, after Hillary Clinton called out his alleged “penchant for sexism,” Trump warned that her husband’s infidelity and the Clinton marriage on the whole were “fair game.” He doubled down in South Carolina Wednesday, calling Bill Clinton “one of the great abusers of the world.”

The latest bit of can’t-look-away performance art from the billionaire showman offers a glimpse at the kind of scorched earth campaign that might be ahead if Trump and Clinton capture their respective party nominations. But even if Trump falls short, his threat to revisit Bill Clinton’s indiscretions stands to add a new element of volatility to the presidential campaign — with highly unpredictable consequences.

Read the article “Donald Trump’s Clinton Gambit” on politico.com.