POLITICS BRIEFING

By Chris Hannay (@channay) and Rob Gilroy (@rgilroy)

The Globe Politics is pleased to include a roundup of news and opinion on U.S. politics, through until this year's election in November. As always, let us know what you think of the newsletter. Sign up here to get it by e-mail each morning.

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CLINTON CAMP INTRIGUED BY TRUDEAU

By Rachelle Younglai

Hillary Clinton's campaign ripped a page from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's playbook, as aides to the Democratic presidential nominee sought to connect Ms. Clinton with voters, new e-mails from Wikileaks show.

The hacked e-mails from the campaign chairman's Gmail account have been trickling out since early October and provide a glimpse into Ms. Clinton's operation. The latest e-mail dump showed top Clinton aides interested in Mr. Trudeau's methods.

Earlier this year, during the contentious primary season, the campaign's digital chief stumbled upon a town hall that Mr. Trudeau conducted in January.

The Prime Minister's Office allowed the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to pick 10 people across the country to interview Mr. Trudeau for 10 minutes. The one-on-one talks with Mr. Trudeau were recorded by the CBC and aired as a regular town hall.

"I'd like to try a version of what Justin Trudeau did. He did a 100 minute town hall where 10 real people got 10 minutes each to go up on stage and ask him questions," Teddy Goff, chief digital strategist for the campaign, said in an e-mail dated March 5. "You see real people have these momentary interactions with her, but never get to see real conversations. Could be cool. And we could hand select for diversity, etc.," he said.

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One of Ms. Clinton's longest serving advisers, Huma Abedin, and the nominee's campaign manager Robert Mook both wrote that they "loved" the idea.

But Mr. Mook said: "Will press think it's 'staged'? Or is there a way to structure it so they won't think that? Also, what consulting firm did Trudeau use? I can't remember."

Mr. Goff said: "I can put together a quick proposal for this and lock heads with comms on how to make this feel organic and not too staged."

The Clinton campaign, which has refused to verify the authenticity of the e-mails, did not respond to a request for comment. Security experts have said some e-mails may have been doctored.

The Clinton campaign and Obama administration believe the Russian government is behind the hacks.

They have accused Russia of working with Wikileaks to influence the U.S. election and help Republican nominee Donald Trump.

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WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW IN OTTAWA

> Cities are worried that a promised infrastructure bank could divert billions of federal dollars away from transit, bridges and other municipal projects.

> The government has quietly reduced the number of airport safety inspections it conducts. (for subscribers)

> More cash-for-access fundraisers for the Liberal cabinet on the horizon: this time a drug firm executive is helping organize a $500-a-ticket private event for Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

> Former finance minister Joe Oliver is preparing to make his political comeback.

> And, well, big rallies don't always translate into votes: the Conservative candidate in the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner federal by-election walked away with nearly 70 per cent of the vote last night, despite Justin Trudeau popping by the campaign. The Liberals got almost 9,000 of the 34,000 votes cast, while the NDP got just 353 votes.

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U.S. ELECTION 2016

> The kinder, gentler Trump: The Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders took in a Donald Trump rally on Monday night, and saw fleeting glimpses of a kinder, less-ranting GOP nominee for president. It played well to many in the Tampa audience, and might be Trump's last chance to sway voters back to his side in the crucial swing state of Florida. However, like most Trump speeches, it was still "largely dominated by crowd-pleasing slogans of revenge and racial intolerance, far-fetched allegations of criminality and elaborate vote-stealing plots involving Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her colleagues, and digressions into baroque conspiracy narratives that seem comprehensible only to Mr. Trump."

> When the dominoes began to fall: John Marshall in TPM blog goes back in time and says January marks the moment when the campaign of Donald Trump started to unravel. That was when Trump dodged a debate with Fox News, and instead organized a fundraiser for veterans. Marshall says this led to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold's digging on the Trump Foundation, which ultimately led to Fahrenthold getting tipped off about the Access Hollywood 'grab' tape. "That happened because in the management of that fundraiser he demonstrated the mix of lying, greed, self-dealing and mismanagement that typify who he is."

> Managing the message: At Business Insider, Oliver Darcy and Pamela Engel say the GOP must confront the "conservative media industrial complex" if it is to survive as a viable political party. "The Republican base still remains largely unreachable, locked away in a space in which only figures like talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host Sean Hannity, and internet titan Matt Drudge hold the keys."

> Lap dogs of democracy: In The Washington Post, Dana Milbank says many in the U.S. media will need to do some serious soul-searching after the election. "Trump exploited a profession dominated by process journalism, and the entire cable news industry irresponsibly gave Trump unfiltered and uncritical coverage as he mounted his assaults on democracy and civility — the equivalent of millions of dollars of free ads that propelled him to the nomination."

> Cash for Clinton: At Politico, Gabriel Debenedetti reports on Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who stunned the Democrats recently with two campaign donations totalling $35-million. Party leaders could barely "control their excitement at the prospect of finally having an answer to Republicans' Sheldon Adelson in the shape of a Silicon Valley titan like the ones Democrats have been chasing after for well over a decade." … And fivethirtyeight.com reports that about 95 per cent of political donations originating in Silicon Valley are going to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

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WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail): "The truth is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be willing to fly to Europe to sign a [Canada-EU trade] deal after that Thursday 'deadline,' and really on almost any Thursday in the next three years. It may be the last trade agreement Mr. Trudeau will see, and he wants to send a pro-trade signal. But there is a tactical imperative: Close the deal now, or risk it unravelling like a ball of string."

Andrew Hammond (The Globe and Mail): "If CETA collapses, it could set a potential precedent not just for the demise of [the EU-U.S. deal], which has recently been roundly criticized by multiple European politicians from French President François Hollande to German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel. In addition, it could point to significant problems for any Brexit deal that the United Kingdom negotiates to secure its departure from the EU."

Lee Airton (The Globe and Mail): "Absent from the discourse [sparked by Bill C-16] have been diverse voices of gender-neutral pronoun users, particularly those whose lives are not an inferno of conflict for everyone around us. And so, I'd like to throw a wet blanket on this smouldering conversation, and suggest that using someone's gender-neutral pronoun can be no big deal."

Shannon Proudfoot (Maclean's): "Justin Trudeau got a lot of credit for appointing a gender-balanced cabinet when his government was elected one year ago. But last week, the Liberals rejected a private members' bill that aimed to further the progress of women in politics."

Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star): "All in all, the first full-fledged federal-provincial conversation about Canada's health system in more than a decade is off to a poor start. Some analysts have compared that conversation to a dialogue of the deaf. But perhaps the worst feature of the current negotiation is a collective case of wilful blindness. Neither side is willing to look in the face the reality that billions of federal and provincial dollars have failed to bring about the transformational change they were supposed to usher in."