There are some signs in the polls that without unpopular antagonists like Kenneth Starr and Newt Gingrich attacking the President, the voters' Clinton fatigue could get worse. Our polls this summer have found that only about 43 percent of voters want the next President to carry on the Clinton Administration's policies, down from 54 percent in a February poll. And 44 percent of respondents last month said the House was right to impeach the President, something only 35 percent of respondents favored last December.

Moreover, nationwide polls are already showing impatience with the hullabaloo surrounding Mrs. Clinton's campaign. A survey we did last month found that while only 18 percent of the public thinks there is too much news coverage of the Presidential candidates, 40 percent says the First Lady's Senate campaign is being overreported. Mrs. Clinton, as celebrity and as the focus of controversy, is a turn-off to voters.

Some strategists have said that Mrs. Clinton's comments about her marriage may have been intended to put such questions to rest early in the campaign. But it is hard to imagine that an opponent or the press would have raised this issue in some new way that would hurt her down the road, whether she had spoken out or not. For most voters, there are no unanswered questions about the personal lives of the Clintons.

While Mrs. Clinton's interview was fodder for cable chat shows, ordinary people are tired of melodrama. In the aftermath of impeachment, 59 percent of respondents in a Pew nationwide survey said that it was more important in the future that a President's life remain private than to elect a President with high moral character. The people have put this behind them. The First Lady can too.

Hillary Clinton has to find a way to capitalize on the popular things that Bill Clinton has stood for, while convincing voters that her continued presence in public life will not sentence them to endless reruns of the Paula Jones, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky and impeachment soap operas.