“Anyone with a vagina will do, honestly,” snarks Emily Zanotti, paraphrasing them. It’s always fun when marginal candidates, one of whom is polling at zero, start picking out running mates. It’s far more likely that one of these chumps will end up as VP to Harris, Warren, or Klobuchar than that they’ll be in a position to deign to name a woman to the ticket.

But not nearly as likely as that they’ll both be gone after New Hampshire. Maybe Booker will try to tough it out through South Carolina.

I also find it amusing that each makes this pledge with an air of vaguely transgressive wokeness, as if they’re committing themselves to a course of action that’s bold rather than something they’d have absolutely no choice but to do if nominated. Let me remind you of the gender split in the 2016 exit poll:

Not only were women a majority of the electorate, if not for their lopsided support for Democrats Trump would have crushed Hillary on the strength of his appeal to men. And don’t be tempted to assume that that lopsidedness was only because the first woman major-party nominee was on the ballot that year. The 2018 midterm exit polls show that Democrats whipped the GOP even more overwhelmingly among women last fall:

Nineteen points. America had a woman on the ballot in 2008 with Sarah Palin, a woman at the top of the ballot in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, and has one top-tier woman candidate this year in Kamala Harris with another, Elizabeth Warren, capable of contending with a few breaks. The idea that Dems will ever again have an all-male ticket when they’re relying as heavily as they are on women voters, with progressives forever demanding more diversity among their leadership, is comical. All Booker and Swalwell are really saying here is that they won’t make a choice that would instantly infuriate the left and leave them scrambling for the balance of the election why they decided that the 2020 election should be a choice between two all-male tickets. Cory and Eric will do what they’re told, and what they’re being told by their base is, “You’d better name a woman if you’re the nominee.”

SPOILER ALERT: I'm a white man.

I know where I can't speak to someone else's experience and I pledge to:
1️⃣ Pass the mic
2️⃣ Ask a woman to serve as VP pic.twitter.com/yz7hUB3bRA

— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) April 24, 2019

Booker: "I will have a woman running mate"

ARE YOU NOT PANDERED TO pic.twitter.com/KSBH4EUmtN

— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) April 24, 2019