I'm not making this argument in a "defend Hillary" motive. I actually want you guys to offer up a good argument. I want you guys to convince me that I don't live in a country that automatically dismisses women because they are "too manly" or "too soft".
Is Hillary a cold fish? Sure. So was Al Gore and you guys were practically crying out for him to run. What is the difference between the 2? Gender. Would an Al Gore defeat draw the giddiness which an apparent Hillary defeat has drawn? The reason is because we look at men and women differently. We look at the political machinations of the Clinton machine and we adore Bill for it and despise Hillary for it.
It isn't limited to the world of politics. I see it in the business world too. And women are just as guilty of it as men are. We may tell ourselves that a woman can do everything a man can do, but in reality few of us honestly believe that.
You argue that women cannot be as charismatic as men at the national level, and that this is a function of our society.
I would like you to consider this: There are (or rather, were) 14 (?) candidates running for president. One was a woman. How many of these candidates are considered charismatic at the national level? I count 3: Obama, Edwards, Romney (I'm not sure Edwards should really be here). Remember, assuming randomness of ability, Hillary had a 1/14 chance of being the best and a 3/14 chance of being top 3. Not good odds, and therefore the phenomenon can be explained at this level without reference to sexism.
Broadening our view, you note that there hasn't yet been a nationally noted charismatic female candidate. But this begs the question: How many nationally noted female candidates have there been (say since 2000)? Three: Clinton, Dole, Mosley-Brown. Wow, I sure had to dig deep to even find a third woman here. How many total man since 2000? At least 30. Playing the probability game again, it's not surprising that women aren't toward the top; there aren't many of them.
So, now that we have explanations of the generalities, let's look at Clinton in Iowa. What happened in Iowa? Record turnout, particularly among college students. Record turnout doesn't benefit a candidate like Hillary, since the sorts of people excited about Hillary are primary/caucus voters anyway. College students are definitely anti-Hillary, being generally more anti-establishment. Also Hillary hasn't exactly endeared herself to that demographic.
