I’m not sure where you get this impression of AOC. From her Wikipedia article:
> After college, Ocasio-Cortez moved back to the Bronx and took a job as a bartender and waitress to help her mother—a house cleaner and school bus driver—fight foreclosure of their home.
That sounds pretty “real Bronx” to me.
As for her campaign:
> Ocasio-Cortez began her campaign in April 2017 while waiting tables and tending bar at Flats Fix, a taqueria in New York City's Union Square. "For 80 percent of this campaign, I operated out of a paper grocery bag hidden behind that bar,"
I don’t think there’s an age when you are “ripe” to become a politician. I think that in order to be good at it, you have to maintain contact with ordinary people and listen to their concerns. Elon sucks at it not because he’s 55 but because he thinks he knows all the answers and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.