In the 2004 campaign, John Kerry had an advantage that George W. Bush couldn't match. A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Kerry could draw a sharp contrast with Bush on military service and leadership at a time when the country was focused on foreign policy -- and at a time when U.S. casualties in Iraq were spiking.

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From which the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" was born. Men who'd served with Kerry stepped forward to suggest that the stories of his service in Vietnam were overblown, putting Kerry on the defensive and sowing doubt that his advantage was actually all that advantageous. Did it cost Kerry the election? No, probably not. But it was a way of turning Kerry's strength into a negative, a tactic warmly embraced by top Bush adviser Karl Rove.

This year, Hillary Clinton has an advantage that the Republicans won't be able to match, save a stunning reversal of fortune by Carly Fiorina. If Clinton is the nominee, she will be poised to be the first woman elected to the White House -- a landmark that will almost certainly spur some voters to give her their vote.

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Enter Stone. His former client, Trump, previewed this line of attack late last year when he started attacking Clinton by noting that Bill had been accused of much more unsavory things.

The idea, as with the Swift Boats: Get people who were thinking of voting for Clinton because of her gender to reconsider.

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It's not clear how extensively Willey would be deployed. Per Reuters: "Willey said she will give interviews and speeches and appear in political advertisements to ensure the accusations remain part of the political discourse during the election campaign."

Her story, as our Glenn Kessler detailed during the Trump-Clinton feud, is a grim one. "The former White House aide said Clinton groped her in his office in 1993," Kessler wrote, "on the same day when her husband, facing embezzlement charges, died in an apparent suicide. ... [A]n independent prosecutor concluded 'there is insufficient evidence to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that President Clinton’s testimony regarding Kathleen Willey was false.'" (When being deposed in the 1990s, we'll note, Willey denied having been touched.)

Stone worked for Trump through the first few months of the businessman's campaign. He left (Trump says he was fired) shortly after the first debate -- and after Trump accused Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly of having "blood coming out of her ... wherever."