Inside Pitch

Actress Natalie Portman and former Ohio First Lady Frances Strickland will headline a "Ohio Women's Vote 2012 Summit" Wednesday morning at the Museum Center at Union Terminal, in an event sponsored by the Obama campaign.

The Israeli-born actress, who won an Oscar in 2011 for her role in "Black Swan," has campaigned for Obama around the country, including an earlier stop in Cincinnati.

The campaign says the event will "provide Ohio women with an opportunity to hear how President Obama is standing up for Ohio woman and their families."

For decades now, Democrats running in Ohio - from president to governor to a host of lesser offices - have turned to one man to help give their campaigns a boost - John H. Glenn Jr., the Mercury astronaut who was the first American to orbit the earth.

Glenn, now 90 years old, left the U.S. Senate in 1999 after representing Ohio in the U.S. Senate for 24 years; and he remains one of the most popular figures in Ohio politics - not only for his service in the Senate but for his status as an icon of the U.S. space program.

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney of North Avondale had a personal story about Barack and Michelle Obama to tell the Ohio Democratic delegation at its morning breakfast Tuesday.

Kearney told of reading newspaper story in 2003 about a young state senator from Illinois who was planning on making a long-shot run at a U.S. Senate seat in 2004.

"I went home to my wife, showed her the story, and said you have to read this,'' Kearney said.