Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surprised travelers at Denver Union Station when she and U.S. Sen. Mark Udall showed up Monday afternoon.
Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, talked to shoppers and laughed with a barista when she ordered coffee as part her swing through various states to help Democratic candidates.
The visit to Union Station came after Clinton appeared at the Brown Palace for a fundraiser for Udall, who faces a tough election challenge from Republican Congressman Cory Gardner.
The Associated Press reported that while at Union Station, Clinton marveled at the barista’s ability to draw patterns in the foam atop their beverages. She got a smiling pig in honor of the shop’s name, Pigtrain Coffee Co., and Udall, a well-known environmentalist, a leaf.
“Is that a marijuana plant?” Clinton asked, laughing, a reference to Colorado’s newly legalized recreational marijuana industry.
It was a return visit of sorts for Clinton. In June, she and former President Bill Clinton chose Union Station’s Great Hall for an evening event venue while finishing touches of its renovation were still underway, during the Clinton Global Initiative America conference. Bigwigs dined on food specially prepared by chefs from Denver restaurants and listened to music, weeks before Union Station’s reopening.
Bill Clinton had been scheduled to headline a fundraiser for Udall on Sept. 27 but canceled because of the birth of their granddaughter.
