ASHINGTON - It's been only six months. But the impeachment trial of President Clinton might as well have been six years ago, if the fledgling congressional campaigns for next year's elections are any sign.
Despite gleeful predictions from Democrats this year that Republicans could lose their majority control of the House on the strength of anti-impeachment sentiments, the issue has all but disappeared. Democrats have backed off plans to campaign against Republicans on their role in impeachment. In the halls of Congress, the word ''impeachment'' is rarely uttered.
Even in congressional districts where impeachment seemed like an obvious campaign touchstone, Democrats appear to be willing to mention the issue only subtly. In Florida, a Democratic candidate, Lori Edwards, hasn't mentioned impeachment in her campaign, and says people are ''sick of hearing about it'' - even though the departing incumbent, Representative Charles T. Canady, was a Republican House manager during the president's Senate trial.
And in California, Adam Schiff, who is challenging Representative James E. Rogan, says he wants ''to focus on local needs'' rather than concentrate on Rogan's record as a House manager.
''Jim Rogan is in trouble for reasons that have nothing to do with impeachment,'' said Schiff, a California state senator. ''I think a lot of people are unhappy that Jim Rogan has ignored the district for five years.''
''Frankly,'' he added, ''I think'' impeachment will be raised ''more in the context of people saying, `We want a representative who is more focused on the quality of life in our schools and neighborhoods than on engaging in partisan politics.'''
To be sure, the elections for all 435 House seats and 33 of the Senate's 100 seats are still more than a year away. Political analysts warn that as time passes, a Democratic candidate suffering in the polls might decide to zero in on controversial elements of an opponent's record, including impeachment.
Several strategists also caution that the issue will vary widely from district to district. Regions where voters largely agreed on impeaching the president are unlikely to hear about it at all.
In the presidential race, candidates from both parties have restricted themselves mostly to veiled allusions to Clinton's impeachment or to the sex scandal involving the White House intern, Monica S. Lewinsky. Both Democratic candidates are implying that Republicans are out of touch with the voters, and several Republicans are focusing on ''family values.''
But at both the presidential and congressional levels, impeachment is loaded with negative meaning for both parties, strategists said. Vice President Al Gore has made a tremendous effort to distance himself from the president, and the leading Republican candidate, George W. Bush, has portrayed himself as a centrist, implicitly distancing himself from the more conservative Republicans who drove the impeachment process.
According to several Democratic strategists, neither the Democrats who supported Clinton nor the Republicans who voted to impeach him escaped the ordeal untainted, making it a tricky issue for either side to capitalize on.
The latest Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll, for example, found that among Democrats, Gore's loyalty to Clinton throughout the impeachment process would make 29 percent more likely to vote for Gore and 21 percent less likely to do so. The survey had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
The impeachment story is ''yesterday's news,'' said Michael Goldman, a Boston-based strategist now working on behalf of a Democratic presidential candidate, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. ''To the degree that people are angry about it and remember it, you've got them anyway. The other people, you're going to win them or lose them on much bigger issues - guns, health care, and Social Security. And that's the mantra the Democrats need to use. They need to stay on message.''
Erik Smith, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which raises money to get Democrats elected to the House, disagreed. ''I think impeachment is a viable argument to make as one element in part of a much larger argument, which is that this Congress is under extremist leadership. You see that whether it's cutting Medicare or shutting down the government or impeaching the president,'' he said.
That is the approach Schiff is taking in California for the seat that includes suburban Glendale, Burbank, and Pasadena, where the race is in full swing.
Impeachment is not being completely ignored. Both Schiff and Rogan have reminded voters of it in direct-mail campaigns, and they have discussed their opposing stances on impeachment in interviews practically since the trial ended in February.
In a fund-raising letter, Rogan raised the specter of impeachment by asking potential donors: ''Are we going to let them get away with it? ... Am I going to fight this battle against Bill Clinton alone?''
But neither Schiff nor Rogan says he he is raising the impeachment issue; each says he is merely responding to remarks made by the other. Schiff, in a telephone interview, said impeachment is part of the campaign because ''Jim Rogan has been championing it as the only reason to support his reelection.''
''Frankly, I think it's a poor issue for him to run on, since the vast majority of our constituents did not support impeachment,'' Schiff said.
Rogan aides insist that Schiff is the driving force behind any discussion of impeachment. Anyway, said Rogan's campaign manager, Jason Roe, ''it is not an issue people are going to vote on.''
''We're going to run on issues in the district, without needing to mention impeachment,'' Roe said.
Aides also point out that Rogan won reelection in November 1998, right in the middle of the House impeachment process. And that could be one reason that impeachment ultimately fades on the campaign trail nationwide. House members weathered the impeachment storm in last year's elections; there was a net loss of five seats for the Republicans, who still managed to retain control of the House. In many cases, though, GOP members won support from voters in favor of Clinton's impeachment.
In the Senate, where the atmosphere during the impeachment trial was far more subdued than in the House and where the entire process ended with Clinton's acquittal, Democrats seem uninterested in trying to play up the past.
''I doubt you'll see any ads about impeachment per se,'' said Jim Jordan, political director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ''Political impressions are built brick by brick, and as evidence of Republicans being vindictive and partisan and out of touch,'' impeachment ''is the keystone ... But I haven't seen any campaign plans or message plans that say, `Topic A is to discuss so-and-so's stance on impeachment.'''
And in Florida, where two of the House managers are vacating their House seats, Democratic candidates say they would rather not mention impeachment at all.
In the district where the Republican incumbent, Bill McCollum, is leaving his seat to run for the Senate, Linda Chapin, his Democratic rival, has left the impeachment issue untouched. Chapin, a former chairman of the Orange County Democrats, is focusing on ''health care, education, business development, the economy,'' according to her campaign manager, Terry Beckett.
''Impeachment is something that really isn't on people's minds anymore,'' Beckett said. ''Either they have bad feelings about the Republicans in the House of Representatives, or they don't. But I think it's gone below the surface.''
Agreeing was Edwards, the Democratic candidate for the Florida seat that Canady is vacating because of his term-limits pledge: ''People aren't talking about it. It's history now.''
