And it came to pass, barely seconds after he became the near-inevitable Republican presidential nominee, that Donald Trump began a gender war.
"Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she's got going is the women's card," Trump said in the aftermath of his five-state primary sweep Tuesday. "And the beautiful thing is, women don't like her."
Observers felt they discerned a distinct eye roll on the part of Chris Christie's wife, Mary Pat, who was standing onstage behind the triumphant Trump. Her husband maintained his now-traditional demeanor of a partially brainwashed cult member.
People, why in the world do you think Trump went there?
A) He analyzed Clinton's entire public career and decided her weakest point was the possibility of being the first female president.
B) He felt his unimpeachable record on feminist issues gave him the gravitas to bring the matter up early.
C) The remarks were a self-censored version of an initial impulse to comment on her bra size.
Maybe all of the above. The man evolves.
Ted Cruz may have seen an opportunity, because he suddenly announced that Carly Fiorina would be his vice-presidential nominee. Fiorina, of course, was the candidate whom Trump once made fun of for her looks. ("Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?")
Clinton loved it. "Well, if fighting for women's health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the 'woman card,' then deal me in," she said.
Trump, in return, sniped at Clinton for "shouting." Chatting with the hosts on "Morning Joe" post-primary, he said: "I know a lot of people would say you can't say that about a woman, because of course a woman doesn't shout. But the way she shouted that message was not - oh, I just - that's the way she said it." He also proudly announced that he was about to get an endorsement from "the great Bobby Knight," former Indiana coach who once told an NBC interviewer that his theory on handling stress was, "I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it."
We would not be bringing up Knight's checkered history today if it had not been for the gender comments. Trump is the former owner of a deeply unsuccessful football franchise. (Make the New Jersey Generals Great Again!) He is going to be endorsed by a trillion sports stars, and if we vetted all of them for sexism, we really would have no time for anything else.
But back to the woman card. "She is a woman. She's playing the woman card left and right. She will be called on it," Trump told CNN. The interviewer, Chris Cuomo, reasonably asked how "you call someone on being a woman," and Trump retorted that "if she were a man and she was the way she is she would get virtually no votes."
The bottom line on Clinton is that she's spent her life championing women and their issues. She began her career with the Children's Defense Fund and fought for better schools in Arkansas, for children's health care as first lady and for reproductive rights as the senator from New York. As secretary of state she spent endless - endless - days and weeks flying to obscure corners of the planet, celebrating the accomplishments of women craftsmen, championing the causes of women labor leaders and talking with and encouraging women in government and politics.
It is true that politicians have a tendency to get carried away when it comes to hyping convenient details in their biographies. But Trump is a white, male offspring of an extremely rich New Yorker of German descent. He's had an unusual lack of charitable causes for a guy that wealthy. The problem suddenly becomes very clear.
The poor guy hasn't got anything to talk about except real estate. He's suffering from a severe lack of cards.