Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Purple party’ mixer leans more to red

A group of similarly minded Las Vegas movers and shakers gathered at Lavo in the Palazzo on Tuesday to watch, wait and see who will be the next U.S. president.

While the intimate nightclub hosted the “executive lounge” event under the guise of a nonpartisan “purple party,” the mixer was overwhelmingly Republican. The exclusive invitation-only mixers are held from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. every Tuesday, but this week's version had a more political tone to it.

The most recognizable names on the guest list, politically speaking, were full-patch Republicans: Nevada’s former two-term governor, Kenny Guinn, District Attorney David Roger and Sen. John Ensign.

Inside the intimate event, two TV screens beamed Fox News election coverage. For a brief moment one of the monitors was changed to the cable channel Vegas One but the screen was soon returned to Rupert Murdoch’s network.

One of the few Democrats who attended the event, who worked on Dina Titus’ campaign, joined his Republican friends at Lavo after he couldn’t find a parking spot at the Rio, where the Democrats were celebrating Tuesday night.

He said his friends with blazing red political stripes were sulking “like they had just had their teeth kicked in” after learning of Obama’s victory over McCain.

Few appeared to be in a celebratory or especially social mood. Instead, the vibe was reserved and, well, very conservative.

Not that the party was intended to be raucous: the executive lounge calls for refined behavior from its “quality” clientele.

“It is not a nightclub,” the Web site states plainly. “We encourage sipping drinks, not slamming shots.”

While 400 people RSVP’d to the invite-only event, about half as many remained two hours into the evening, following McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s acceptance speech.

Organizer Jimmy Foster acknowledged that despite intentions to be politically neutral, the nightclub’s proximity to the local Republican watch party made it more popular with Republicans than Democrats.

“It’s convenient for them to come by,” he said. “For the others, (the Democrats) they’re over at the Rio.”

Despite the Republican majority in the club, Foster said “there was a lot of people clapping and screaming,” when the election was called in favor of Obama.

“Clearly it wasn’t everybody,” he said with a laugh.

More information can be found at www.theexecutivelounge.com.

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