Just when you thought he was out … Hillary pulls him back in. The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard connects a few dots on the campaign trail to see the direction of Team Hillary’s strategy as she tries to deal with wan enthusiasm — especially among women, a demographic she had hoped to vault her back into the White House. The focus will shift from Hillary as her own woman to the partnership with the charmer who put her in the White House the first time.

Stoddard points to three developments in that direction:

1. Bill will be doing 20 fundraisers in the next month alone, an extraordinary schedule for the candidate’s spouse who has been, heretofore, in hiding.
2. The Washington Post alerted the world Wednesday that Hillary, who used to prefer Hillary Rodham Clinton, will no longer be using her middle name. Clinton campaign reporters Anne Rumsey Gearan tweeted “A change at the @washingtonpost copy desk today: ‘Per the Clinton campaign, the preferred first reference’ is ‘Hillary Clinton.’ No Rodham.”
3. For those unaware of Bill’s reemergence, a photo tweeted by the campaign Wednesday showed the couple, rarely seen together, backstage at an event in Iowa. Wait, there’s more! How about the story of their romance, told in old photos, for a throwback?

In case you missed the tweet, here it is:

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/666329631390216193/photo/1

Team Hillary wants to go soft-focus for a while, and why not? She’s not facing any serious competition for the nomination. In the RealClearPolitics averages, Hillary has a 23-point lead nationally, and leads by 24 points in Iowa and seven in New Hampshire. Her problem is in general-election polling, where voters don’t trust her and lack enthusiasm for her campaign. She has spent the year having to play defense on both her e-mail scandal and the collapse of Barack Obama’s foreign policy, and it clearly has not helped her standing in those areas.

In other words, it’s time for a change of pace, and Bill Clinton may be the best softball she’s got. In fact, it’s a little odd that this pitch has taken so long to deliver, unless one remembers that the former President on his own tends to cause trouble, too. At his best, Bill can be charming, disarming, and has a proven ability to build enthusiasm. At his worst, Bill tends to drone on endlessly, come across as self-centered, and off stage might run the risk of other complications. Overall, though, if Hillary wants people to relate to her more personally, the only option she’s got is Bill. It certainly isn’t happening when she tries it. Thus, the campaign is dispensing with “Hillary Rodham Clinton” and presumably “Hillary!” to remind people that she’s married to one of the most popular former Presidents around.

That may be another trap, though. Team Hillary may have kept Bill on the sidelines not just to emphasize “sisters doing it for themselves,” but to de-emphasize the Clinton Nostalgia Tour. If softening Hillary up with a few dreamy photos and Bill Clinton speeches might work with some women voters, it’s likely to turn off the millennials who barely remember the Clinton years and couldn’t care less about them. In 1992, the Clinton campaign theme song was “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” but this new strategy looks more like “Yesterday When I Was Young.” Most 18-34 year olds won’t know either song. It will leave a significant force within the Obama coalition out in the cold, and perhaps give Republicans an opportunity to make some inroads.