Fast Takes: AOC is a real threat, our dumb anti-data center fight and other commentary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “boasts three indispensable factors for a successful presidential race: national name recognition, the capacity to raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, and insatiable media interest,” observes Mark Halperin at The Free Press.She “understands that modern politics is part ideology, part organization, and part show business, and she does not pretend to be offended by the performative superficialities of the profession.” And if she’s “the dominant progressive candidate” in the primaries, she could keep “accumulating delegates while her establishment rivals carve each other up.” So “the question increasingly is not whether she will run.

It is what happens to the rest of the Democratic field if she does.”With the Iran war in “stalemate and midterm elections less than three months away, Trump is asking voters for time,” argues the Washington Examiner’s Byron York.Witness his recent long ad lib at his Garden City rally on public safety, where he digressed to confess he’d used the military “a little bit more than I wanted to, frankly” to stop Iran from going nuclear, then latter suggested, “You have to pay a little bit more” as an unfortunate result.

Argh: “Talk to any Republican strategist handling midterm races, and he will tell you that GOP voters’ biggest concern about the war is the fact that it has resulted in higher gas prices.” The speech “showed Trump struggling with the war,” as he likely will, until he “can figure out a way to extricate himself from the mess in Iran.”“It’s a tough time to be a data center,” quips Reason’s Robby Soave.They’re essential to our future, but the rise in opposition “is rapid and sudden.” But: “Why are people so furious about buildings?” Well, they’re “falling for popular but incorrect talking points about how data centers are gobbling up resources.” Supporters “need to do a better job explaining to the public that they cre...