From Henry Ford to Donald Trump, America has lionized business leaders (and shameless bankrupts) who disdain history. But almost as insidious are those politicians and pundits who oversimplify history. To update George Santayana: “Those who misremember the past are condemned to mangle the present.”

A current myth, often invoked by skittish Democrats, depicts the 1998 congressional elections as a plebiscite on Bill Clinton’s impending impeachment. In this common misinterpretation of history, a national voter rebellion punished Republicans across the political landscape for their frenzied fanaticism in trying to oust a president for lying about sex.

In reality, the 1998 elections were far more complicated than a didactic parable about the dangers to a political party in pursuing impeachment. Yes, the Democrats picked up five House seats—the only off-year gain for a presidential incumbent’s party since FDR in 1934. But even on Election Night as the votes came in, 1998 was described as a “Seinfeld election”—that is to say, an election about nothing.

I remember it that way, as well. What I recall from covering the only tight 1998 re-election fight, featuring a hang-him-high GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee, were not smoking guns or smoldering resentment of Clinton’s pursuers on Capitol Hill, but thick clouds of cigarette smoke.

An obligatory stop for two-term Republican incumbent Steve Chabot and his popular Democratic challenger, Cincinnati Mayor Roxanne Qualls, were the bingo parlors in neighborhoods like Mt. Airy. Circulating through rooms, whose air quality in the days before municipal bans effectively eliminate smoking in indoor public venues required a Hazmat suit, both candidates recognized that they were a minor attraction compared to shouts of “B-11” and “Bingo in the back.” As Qualls instructed an eager aide, “You don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. It’s not about handing out literature.”