Politically, Clinton’s embrace of women as trailblazers “has the potential to be powerful and successful if it’s authentic — and it has the power to backfire if it seems purely political,” said Nicolle Wallace, a former GOP strategist who has written two novels about a fictional Republican woman president.

“I have never done a book signing or a book event where women have not come up to me and said something about still being upset about what happened to Hillary — that sense that there was this unsettled experience,” Wallace said.

In the 2008 campaign, Clinton shunned the “woman” label. Over and over again, Clinton said she was running because she thought she was the most qualified candidate and would make the best president…

“I think that was a big mistake on our part — not wholeheartedly embracing the idea of electing the first woman president of the United States,” said one top Clinton adviser who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the 2008 strategy.