Kevin McCarthy went far in his fealty to Donald Trump. He fed him tasty Skittles candy on Air Force One, like a political Pavlov.

The tragicomic farce of former Young Gun and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s codependent career is that it wasn’t supposed to end in a nuclear fireball, then a tiny whelp.

As a young man, using lottery winnings, McCarthy started a little deli counter in Bakersfield behind his uncle’s yogurt shop, got interested in politics and went on to work in Rep. Bill Thomas’ office from 1987 until 2002.

When McCarthy was in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2006, he was generally liked by Republicans and Democrats and was viewed as a solid glad-hander with potential. Sacramento’s Capitol Journal named him Legislative Rookie of the Year in 2004. You’d hear from one journalist and Sacramento politico after another: “affable guy” and, unanimously, “very ambitious.”

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I once spoke recently with a current California Assembly member who likes McCarthy personally. He said of the former speaker, essentially, “He’s not really like the way he is in public.” Another major Sacramento operative said of McCarthy’s time in the Assembly: “Kevin provided a level of leadership of Republicans that had really been unmatched.”

No one says that in Washington now.

Not everyone in Sacramento liked him, though. One former elected official noted that “Kevin is all about Kevin. All ego. All self-gratification. No guiding principles. No morals.”

Being a solid schmooze hound works well........

© San Francisco Chronicle