The election will be chosen on perception. hillary has not aged well, and opposed to anyone energetic and articulate who articulates constitutional conservative views, she will not seem presidential. It'll be a factor people can't identify.
The country's in bad shape. We need someone who we would trust in bad situations. A lot of it will be on an undefined level. We need someone who seems capable of good decisions, whose goal is to save the US.
Ted Cruz seems to have it, except I'm not sure about him on foreign affairs.
The EBT vote, flukes, homosexuals, and free stuff crowd will also likely vote for her. That leaves us with our work cut out for us if we want a Conservative to win again.
And I disagree with you about losing if we ran a woman. A woman would eliminate the "first woman president" advantage Hillary would have, at least among the middle.