Clinton's demeanor during her time as First Lady -- especially during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and its aftermath -- is another situation where bad news was actually good news for Clinton in the polls, analysts have said.
"In the impeachment scene Clinton emerged as a much more favorable person during the period in the victim role," said Marist's Miringoff. "But the most telling was the incident with Lazio, it created a gender gap. She stands her ground and that's not lost on voters. It creates some sympathy and it softens her."
"It gave her a chance later to prove she is likeable," added Miringoff. "It humanizes her in ways she doesn't seem to be able to do herself when she's campaigning."
Some say the idea that Clinton is playing victim may be going overboard.
Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, said Clinton's surge in popularity following the debate with Lazio may have been more about him than her.
"It wasn't so much [a reaction] to her as a victim but because women saw Lazio as a man picking on a woman," said Carroll. "It was a matter of [Lazio] doing something that most people didn't approve of."
"Clinton knows how to play the victim effectively; she's had a lot of practice," Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, told ABC News.com. "But in the general electorate it won't work nearly as well. People want a leader in a president and they don't want someone who is playing the victim."
"But [the Clinton campaign] will stop doing it when it stops working," added Sabato. "These are the Clintons. They know politics well."
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