Actually, there is a straight line from Bill Clinton's rise to power back to the earliest modern DC sex scandal.In 1974, the powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Wilbur Mills (D-AR) was caught with stripper Fanne Foxe (the "Tidal Basin Bombshell) when he was pulled over at 2:00am for a DUI. Mills represented Little Rock for 38 years.
Mills resigned, and Clinton buddy Jim Guy Tucker (then Arkansas Attorney General) succeeded Mills in Congress. Clinton took Tucker's seat as Attorney General. Clinton eventually became Governor, and when he became President Tucker left Congress and became Governor after Clinton.
-PJ
That was a two step scandal.
“Despite the scandal, Mills was re-elected in November 1974 in a heavily Democratic year with nearly 60% of the vote, defeating Republican Judy Petty. On November 30, 1974, Mills, seemingly drunk, was accompanied by Fanne Foxe’s husband onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, a burlesque house where Foxe was performing.”