Steve Hilton: British strategist becomes unlikely frontrunner for California governor | California

According to friends, he “knows how to fool people like Trump” and has made a name for himself in the UK with his crazy policy ideas, including making the country sunnier by using state-owned cloud busters.

Controversial strategist Steve Hilton, now dubbed the “little Rasputin” of Conservative politics, has emerged as an unlikely frontrunner in the primary race for California governor.

His rhetorical talent is still familiar; Hilton, who is said to have launched the “hold on to the hoodie” campaign for David Cameron’s government, now claims that her vote will make California. “Californitable”.

Hilton rose to prominence in the 2000s and 2010s for her role in modernizing the Conservative party, later becoming Cameron’s director of strategy. He was also known at Westminster for his unorthodox working style. Hilton will reportedly fill the corridors of Downing Street with socks and order civil servants to enact his latest hare-brained plan, a bizarre prank parodied in BBC political satire The Thick Of It. She also pressured her to cancel her maternity leave, according to those who worked with her.

He now wants to be a full-fledged politician rather than a behind-the-scenes sidekick. Some are skeptical about how this will work.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, who served in Cameron’s coalition government, was not keen on this possibility. “I think of him more as an ideologue than a doer, not a serious politician,” he said. “His big idea, the ‘great society,’ was a disappointment.” Cable believes Hilton could only have been elected “by some freak accident.”

“It would be so bad!” A government consultant who worked at No 10 at the same time as Hilton said this. “He’s someone who very quickly becomes insanely frustrated with how government actually works. He comes up with incredibly crazy ideas, wants them all to happen instantly, isn’t interested in compromise, and when that doesn’t happen, he throws his toys out of the pram.”

A former cabinet minister who worked with Hilton said he was “confused” by his ambition to become governor. “I remember there was no one in the UK who was more disappointed with the way the government was working (and things were going pretty well under Cameron at the time!),” they said. “The US state is generally thought to be more dysfunctional than the UK, so I wonder how it will fare.”

Some expressed surprise that the man credited with making Conservatives seem more liberal had become a “hardcore Maga” supporter who claimed Trump was “on speed dial.”

But a close friend thinks this misunderstands Hilton:. “He hasn’t gone from a sweet Cameroonian to a hard-core Maga populist; he’s more nuanced. He’s a separatist and believes in being shaken up as much as possible. That’s what Cameroonism was.” In fact, he still defines himself as an environmentalist and says that fighting the climate crisis is important. He claimed Democrats were “stealing” his ideas.

Will Hilton’s passion for complexity extend to the United States? “I don’t think Californians will appreciate this,” said a former colleague. “He loses his temper very quickly. I sense that he finds the act of governing and the compromises required almost unbecoming of him.”

Former communications chief Andy Coulson, who was later jailed for phone hacking, noted Hilton’s apparent disdain for detail. Writing in Telegram “I would ask: ‘So how does this happen?'” he said of their time working together. If I had an answer it would be: ‘Everything will be fine – you just see.’ “It was a little frustrating because it was my team that would have to come out of Steve’s dream factory and sell the final product.”

Other former friends and colleagues of Hilton see this as a bit unfair and think her unorthodox approach could bear more fruit in the US.

Giles Kenningham, No 10’s former head of press, said: “In an age of huge upheavals and disruption, where we see industries becoming obsolete overnight, AI disrupting everything, I think we need someone who challenges the status quo, is agile and has the ability to move things forward. That’s Steve.”

A friend of Hilton’s agrees: “The things that make her admired and successful are that she’s ambitious and does some ridiculous things, that she’s a little bit out there – ‘extra’ as the kids call it – the things that people around here get mad at you for.”

They added: “Steve gets along with Trump because he knows how to fool people and make fun of himself. If you take everything he says seriously, he’ll fool you even more.”

While unseating the Democrats in one of their safest states for the first time in two decades seems like a long shot — especially for an eccentric Briton who is friends with Trump — Hilton’s friends warn not to underestimate her.

Some polls show Hilton rose to leadership for the primary, which seemed implausible before.

“He moved to California in 2012 and I went to visit him shortly after,” a friend said. “He told me at the time that his biggest wish was to become governor, and I laughed at him. But look now! He’s doing well!”

The friend added that Hilton was often ahead of the zeitgeist: “She was always a Trump fan, predicted Trump would win in 2016 and people laughed at her. Her modernization of the Conservative Party was controversial and ridiculed at the time, but it delivered a victory.”

If he doesn’t succeed in the US, could Hilton return to “disrupt” politics here?

“No,” said a close friend, “he’s in love with California, but more importantly he sees the UK as a complete mess.”