David Cameron, the UK Tory leader, is in California to meet with politicians and tech gurus and to pitch himself, rather than Gordon Brown, as the future of Britain. Only two weeks ago Cameron's career was in free fall, but after a stellar performance at the Conservative Party's conference and Brown's disastrous about-face on calling an election, Cameron is riding high in the polls and the press.
The leader of the opposition met with Arnold Schwarzenegger for over an hour before attending the Google Zeitgeist conference in San Francisco, where he promised a "post-bureaucratic era" both techie and Thatcherite. Cameron is traveling from California to Washington, where he is expected to meet with President Bush—an honor not extended to his predecessor, Michael Howard, who distanced the Tories from the Iraq War. (More David Cameron stories.)