Should Republicans critical of Clinton wisen up and stop setting her up to be elected President in case she runs?

No. And Gloriosky! if past performance re wising up is any guide, they won’t.

If the Republicans want to win the next election, they need to take several steps, including ignoring Hillary.
Most importantly, they need to abandon having 20 or so primary debates. It allows too much exposure to the Democrats. Each candidate ends up trying to be more conservative, and more Reagan than the others, and the Democrats just gain more ammunition against them when they go into the general election.
It is important to stop criticizing Hillary, if only to stop appearing to be misogynist.

They can’t (i.e the Republicans can’t) – it’s in their blood. They don’t think strategically. They act viscerally. Just look at the last 4–5 years.

It is too soon to say what Republicans (or Democrats) need to do to win the next election. Much of that has to do with economic conditions at the time. Also, who runs will have a big impact on the result.

Chris Christie is clearly trying to move to the middle so he can present himself as a moderate. Whether he will be able to win a primary doing that remains to be seen.

In any case, there is a lot of governing to be done before we need concern ourselves with 2016.

@wundayatta Good call.

Based on the last election, the choice of credible candidates for the Republican party is incredibly awful. I would guess that Clinton would win no matter who runs as the Republican candidate.