HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper says he foresees the 2008 Democratic National Convention in his city as an opportunity for the national media to observe how leadership happens in the West.

Leadership is different in this part of the country, and that is why Democrats are finding success in the Rocky Mountain states, Hickenlooper said in Helena, where he was the keynote speaker at a Montana Democratic Party gathering.

Hickenlooper spoke Saturday at the annual Mansfield-Metcalf dinner, the state party's biggest fundraiser and cheerleading event of the year. A record 1,015 tickets were sold.

"I think Western Democrats talk about creating opportunities," Hickenlooper told reporters before the dinner.

He noted Denver's adoption of a 10-year program to fight homelessness not through another government effort, but by creating a private foundation to raise money that goes to existing social-service agencies. Homelessness fell 11 percent in the program's first six months.

Hickenlooper said Democrats in the West are "pro-business but pro-environment" and believe in the power of cooperation, even working with political opponents to accomplish goals.

Standing in front of a red backdrop with the message "Montana's on the Move," he and the state's U.S. Senate Democrats, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, declined to endorse any of the Democratic candidates for president.

"We want a Western primary so we can look 'em all over and make that decision," Baucus said.

Hickenlooper, who worked in Montana for three summers as a graduate student studying geology, put in a plug for Gov. Brian Schweitzer to be on the ticket.

"You look at someone like Brian Schweitzer, and you wonder why he's not being talked about as a vice presidential candidate," Hickenlooper said.