加利福尼亚州贝克斯菲尔德——下一任美国众议院议长很可能来自加州——不是南希·佩洛西的金州，而是另一个加州，唐纳德·特朗普的加州。
众议院共和党领袖凯文·麦卡锡是中央谷的儿子，中央谷是农业和石油开采的中心地带，热切地拥护前总统。作为加州进步政治中的一条乡村保守主义路线，这里的居民经常感到被北部的旧金山和南部的洛杉矶的自由派邻居排斥、憎恨和遗弃。
“我们是被遗忘的山谷，”退休保险推销员查克·霍尔上周在弗雷斯诺的一次共和党晚宴上说。
正是在这里，麦卡锡开始了他的政治崛起，从一个在他叔叔的冷冻酸奶店内设立三明治柜台的年轻企业家，成为州和国家政治中更有影响力的共和党人之一。他的职业生涯在特朗普时代开始，当时麦卡锡是早期的支持者，他理解特朗普充满不满的民粹主义在吸引工人阶级远离民主党、加入共和党方面的吸引力。
但在过去的一周，麦卡锡作为该党众议院领袖的未来陷入了危险，因为他在2021年1月6日美国国会大厦起义后告诉共和党人特朗普应该辞职的音频被公布。
由于麦卡锡依赖特朗普帮助共和党人在11月的选举中赢得众议院的控制权，并从旧金山民主党人佩洛西那里夺取议长的木槌，一年前的评论引发了对他们关系以及麦卡锡领导一个仍然受制于特朗普的政党的能力的新问题。
“我不一定要得到这份工作，”麦卡锡上周在他的选区接受美联社采访时说，就在纽约时报发布他2021年言论音频的前几天。
“你知道，我已经完成了我要做的事情。现在，真的是什么是你留下的遗产?”
音频的发布并没有影响麦卡锡周六晚上在阿纳海姆举行的加州共和党宴会上受到的欢迎，在那里他受到了500多名观众的起立鼓掌。
在一次演讲中，他从未直接提到这段音频，但对播放他讲话片段的MSNBC和CNN进行了挖苦。“他们名字里的字母比他们的观众还多，”他说。
他还多次称赞特朗普，一度表示这位前总统应该获得诺贝尔和平奖。
麦卡锡的职业生涯在许多方面反映了共和党政治的轨迹，在罗纳德·里根(Ronald Reagan)总统任期的令人陶醉的乐观主义中成长，然后转向与特朗普对现状和民主党政策的更尖锐批评保持一致。
但麦卡锡对国会山袭击事件的处理，特别是在众议院1月6日委员会调查他当天与特朗普的谈话时，将成为他在国会的决定性篇章，或许也是他作为领导人的未来。麦卡锡在围攻事件发生后立即对特朗普提出了批评，他称之为“非美国式的”，并表示这是他职业生涯中最悲伤的日子之一，之后他匆忙前往特朗普在佛罗里达州的Mar-a-Lago俱乐部看望他，以弥合分歧。
“他仍然有那次的瘀伤，”戴夫·诺尔说，他是附近历史悠久的石油开采城镇塔夫脱的长期市长。“他将永远带着这些伤痕。所以这是非常艰难的一课。”
特朗普时代似乎已经在中央谷造成了后遗症，那里的居民表示，他们厌倦了华盛顿的政治和斗争，只想从日常生活的压力中解脱出来。
通货膨胀使汽油价格飞涨，接近每加仑6美元，对一些人来说，汽油价格已经涨到三位数。随着该地区努力应对人口波动和收入不平等，犯罪仍是一个问题。随着国家从疫情复苏，冠状病毒危机笼罩着这个社区，就像在其他地方一样。
在周日晚上观看儿童少年联盟比赛的家庭持有不同的观点，一些人认为麦卡锡是华盛顿问题的一部分，另一些人认为他是一个潜在的解决方案。
呼吸治疗师Garrilynn Dickerson是两个孩子的母亲，她在当地医院治疗新冠肺炎患者，她说她只是希望共和党人和民主党人一起工作。
“老实说，我只是想要团结，”这位独立选民说，她喜欢倾向自由主义的参议员兰德·保罗。但也希望看到麦卡锡更多地接触民主党人。"我不喜欢诽谤。"
尽管有保守的根源，这个通常被称为西部德克萨斯的地方也在发生变化。随着拉丁美洲人和其他人口群体数量的增加，曾经以白人为主的人口正在减少。贝克斯菲尔德市议会正在建设新的区域线路，以容纳不断增长的旁遮普人口。
克恩县民主党主席克里斯蒂安·罗莫说，农场工人运动的诞生地和民权劳工领袖凯萨·查维斯的故乡正在获得它自己的地位。随着第二代和第三代移民有资格投票，他们的政党忠诚度受到民主党和共和党的高度追捧，他们努力增加人数和投票率。
“我们是一个非常蓝的县中的一个红点，但我一直告诉人们，蓝色的浪潮正在冲破那堵红墙，”他说。
为了准备11月的选举，麦卡锡正在求助于另一位前共和党议长、佐治亚州的纽特·金里奇(Newt Gingrich)，他在向选民提交了共和党优先事项的“与美国签约”清单后，在1994年的选举中赢得了控制权。
麦卡锡已经让他的普通成员整理出今年夏天要向公众展示的优先事项清单。他承认，他的想法没有被国会另一位共和党领袖、肯塔基州参议员米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)接受，麦康奈尔表示，选举将是对总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)和民主党政策的公投。
“这是我和米奇意见不一致的地方，”麦卡锡说。“我认为我们必须提前向美国公众展示你将做什么，因为当人们去投票时，他们投票赞成议程。”
长期担任克恩县共和党领导人的凯西·阿伯纳西(Cathy Abernathy)说，她不相信共和党人能够在今年秋天赢得控制权，尽管外界分析表明，选举是他们输掉的。
“我不认为这是理所当然的，”她说。
这不是麦卡锡第一次伸手拿议长的小木槌，他在2015年突然退出竞选，当时很明显他没有得到极右翼议员的支持。
然而，还不清楚这一次他是否能做得更好。过去的几位共和党发言人，包括金里奇和俄亥俄州的众议员约翰·博纳(John Boehner)以及威斯康星州的保罗·瑞安(Paul Ryan)，都放弃了这一工作，被自己党内躁动不安的普通议员赶出了城。
“我想当议长吗?是的。但我不一定要当议长，”麦卡锡说。“我的生活无论如何都会好的。”
McCarthy's push to ascend to House speaker relies on Trump
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The next speaker of the U.S. House could very well hail from California — not Nancy Pelosi’s slice of the Golden State, but the other California, Donald Trump’s California.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is a son of the Central Valley, a farming and oil-pumping heartland that eagerly embraced the former president. A swath of rural conservatism amid California's progressive politics, it's where residents often feel ostracized, resented and left behind by their liberal neighbors in San Francisco to the north and Los Angeles to the south.
“We’re the forgotten valley,” said retired insurance salesman Chuck Hall at a Republican Party dinner last week in Fresno.
It’s here where McCarthy launched his political rise, from a young entrepreneur who set up a sandwich counter inside his uncle’s frozen yogurt shop to one of the more powerful Republicans in state and national politics. His career took off during the Trump era, when McCarthy was an early backer who understood the magnetic pull of Trump’s grievance-laden populism in drawing working-class people away from Democrats and into the Republican fold.
But this past week, McCarthy’s future as the party's leader in the House was thrown into jeopardy after audio was released of him telling fellow Republicans in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Trump should resign.
As McCarthy relies on Trump to help Republicans win control of the House in the November elections and seize the speaker's gavel from San Francisco Democrat Pelosi, the year-old comments raised new questions about their relationship and McCarthy's ability to lead a party still beholden to Trump.
“I don’t have to have the job,” McCarthy told The Associated Press in an interview last week in his district in the days before The New York Times released the audio of his 2021 remarks.
“You know, I’ve done what I’m going to do. Now, it’s really what is the legacy you leave?”
The release of the audio didn’t dampen McCarthy’s welcome at a California Republican Party banquet Saturday night in Anaheim, where he received a standing ovation from a crowd of over 500.
In a speech, he never mentioned the audio directly but took a dig at MSNBC and CNN, which aired clips of his remarks. “They’ve got more letters in their names than they have viewers,” he said.
He also praised Trump repeatedly, at one point saying the former president should have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
McCarthy’s career in many ways reflects the arc of Republican politics, coming of age in the heady optimism of Ronald Reagan’s presidency and then shifting to align with Trump’s more hard-edged criticism of the status quo and Democratic policies.
But McCarthy's handling of the Capitol attack, especially as the House's Jan. 6 committee investigates his conversations with Trump that day, will emerge as a defining chapter of his time in Congress and, perhaps, his future as a leader. McCarthy had been critical of Trump immediately after the siege, which he called “un-American” and said was one of the saddest days of his career, before dashing to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to patch things up.
“He still has the bruises from that,” said Dave Noerr, the long-serving mayor of nearby Taft, a historic oil-drilling town. “He will wear those bruises for perpetuity. So that was a very tough lesson.”
The Trump years seem to have created a hangover in the Central Valley, where residents said they are tired of the politics and the fighting in Washington, and just want some relief from the stresses in their daily lives.
Inflation has sent gas prices sky-high, at nearly $6 a gallon, pushing the price of a fill up into triple digits for some. Crime remains a problem as the region struggles with population fluctuations and income inequality. The coronavirus crisis hangs over the community as it does elsewhere as the nation emerges from the pandemic.
Families watching kids at a weeknight Little League game held mixed views, with some believing McCarthy is part of the problem in Washington and others seeing him as a potential solution.
Garrilynn Dickerson, a respiratory therapist and mother of two who treated COVID-19 patients at a local hospital, said she just wants Republicans and Democrats to work together.
“Honestly, I just want unity,” said the independent voter who said she likes libertarian leaning Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., but also wants to see McCarthy reach out more to Democrats. “I don’t like the mudslinging.”
Despite its conservative roots, the place that's often called the Texas of the West is also changing. The once predominantly white population is fading as Latinos and other demographic groups gain in numbers. The Bakersfield City Council is working on new district lines to incorporate the growing Punjabi population.
Christian Romo, chairman of the Kern County Democrats, said the birthplace of the farm workers movement and the home to civil rights labor leader Cesar Chavez is coming into its own. As second- and third-generation immigrants become eligible to vote, their party allegiance is highly sought after by Democrats and Republicans working to boost numbers and turnout.
“We’re a red dot in a very blue county, but I keep telling people the blue wave is cracking through that red wall,” he said.
To prepare for the November elections, McCarthy is reaching back to the tools of another former Republican speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who won control in the 1994 election after presenting voters with the “Contract with America” list of GOP priorities.
McCarthy has tasked his rank and file with assembling its own list of priorities to present to the public this summer. He acknowledged his ideas are not being embraced by the other GOP leader in Congress, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has said the election will be a referendum on President Joe Biden and Democratic policies.
“This is where Mitch and I disagree,” McCarthy said. “I think we have to lay out to the American public what you’re going to do ahead of time, because when the people go to vote, they vote for the agenda.”
Longtime Kern County Republican Party leader Cathy Abernathy, who first hired McCarthy as a young congressional intern a generation ago, said she is not convinced that Republicans will be able to win control this fall, despite outside analysis suggesting the election is theirs to lose.
“I don’t take it for granted,” she said.
It's not the first time McCarthy has reached for the speaker's gavel, having dropped out of a race abruptly in 2015 when it was clear he did not have support from hard-right lawmakers.
Yet it's not at clear that this time he will be able to do much better. The past several Republican speakers, including Gingrich and Reps. John Boehner of Ohio and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, have all abandoned the job, chased out of town by restive rank-and-file lawmakers in their own party.
“Do I want to be speaker? Yes. But I don't have to be speaker,” McCarthy said. “My life will be fine one way or another.”
