Party trains ready to roll in Denver

DENVER -- All aboard for some of the coolest parties in town this week when the Democratic National Convention opens here today.

With restaurant and nightclub party venues at a premium, two corporations with Las Vegas ties will have their guests wet their whistles on vintage railroad cars.

Billionaire Philip Anschutz, whose Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) built the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, has leased several vintage train cars from Anschutz's ski train to the Chicago-based Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt hotel chain.

With Penny Pritzker, national finance chairwoman of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, who knows who might show up. And her brother Jay is the national chairman for Citizens for Hillary.

Their political favorites might explain all the security seen Sunday around the train cars, which are parked behind Union Station, where presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan arrived for the 1908 Democratic National Convention.

The party train experience will be reminiscent of the whistle-stop campaigns of yesteryear.

Anschutz, a Republican, also will have the train cars in Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention.

Next to the Pritzker party-on-rails soiree is the Patron Tequila Express, leased by the Las Vegas-based Patron tequila.

Other DNC venues include Invesco Field, Coors Field, Red Rocks amphitheater, the Denver Botanic Gardens, The Denver Art Museum, the Brown Palace hotel, and Ellie Caulkins Opera House, the site of the 1908 DNC when the building was known as the Denver Auditorium Theater.

For more from Denver go to www.conventionconfidential.com.

WIN-WYNN SITUATION

Obama backer Elaine Wynn is coming from the Beijing Olympics with a priceless accessory -- the gold medal of Team USA's Jason Kidd.

Elaine and her husband, Steve Wynn, who own the Wynn Las Vegas, were big supporters of the U.S. basketball team, which stayed at the Wynn during the pre-Olympic training this summer and last.

The Dallas Mavericks guard became the 13th American male basketball player to earn two gold medals.

"It's not a (gambling) marker or anything like that," Kidd told The Arizona Republic. "She's just a great friend and a really great person."

THE SCENE AND HEARD

A photographer from Washington, D.C., stopped a police officer on the 16th Street Mall on Sunday and asked where she could pick up some baby shampoo. "She was on her way to an anti-war protest march, and she heard baby shampoo worked to counteract tear gas," said Boulder policeman Rick French.

SIGHTINGS

Documentary filmmaker George Hickenlooper, shooting footage of his cousin, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, for a film project he's planning to pitch. "We could see him in the Senate," said the director, whose documentaries include "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" and "Mayor of the Sunset Strip." ... New York columnist Jimmy Breslin, having breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel. ... We hear that Richard Dreyfuss is on his way to Denver.

THE PUNCH LINE

"Tax meat." -- Message on a placard at a protest march in Denver on Sunday.

Norm Clarke can be reached at (702) 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com.