Inside Pitch

Kentucky's junior senator, Rand Paul, was the narrow favorite for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in a straw poll this weekend of over 3,000 conservative activists from around the country.

CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Committee) held a three-day gathering in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C.; and participants voted online for who they would like to see carry the presidential banner for the GOP in 2016.

On Friday night, at the Columbus Athenaeum, the Ohio Democratic Democratic Party will hold its annual "Legacy Dinner," one of the party's largest fundraising events of the year.

"Let's celebrate our 2014 talent,'' says the announcement on the party's website, ohiodems.org.

In other words, it is a "cattle call" for potential statewide candidates.