COLUMBUS — Democrat Ted Strickland enjoys a reputation as Mr. Nice Guy. He has been known to help strangers pick out a tie at the mall, and if an airline upgrades him to first class, swap the roomy seat for someone’s ticket in coach.

He buys his suits at T.J. Maxx, dines at Big Boy and pays for his own health care and cuts his own government salary.

“I don’t do that because I’m some sort of goodie-two-shoes kind of person who thinks he is in any way morally superior to others but I’ve done it because I understand that the people that I represented as a congressman and the people that I am obligated to serve as a governor, many of them are struggling,” said Strickland, 69. “And I don’t want to set myself up as being in some kind of specialized category.”

Despite the nice guy image, people shouldn’t mistake kindness with weakness, said Strickland campaign manager Aaron Pickrell.

“It is a tough campaign and I know how to fight for what I believe in. But I fight fair. I don’t throw mud but I do tell the truth,” Strickland said recently. “I am telling the truth about John Kasich’s record. He finds that objectionable. But I think that it’s fair because my record is fair game, his record is fair game.”

The Strickland campaign came out gunning for Kasich last May with ads attempting to define Kasich as a Wall Street banker responsible for the near economic collapse. The contentious tenor of the campaign hasn’t let up.

The Kasich campaign repeatedly complains that Strickland has gone negative while Kasich has focused on talking about his ideas and policies, such as CSI: Ohio – Common Sense Initiative for business regulation reform.

“We all know what CSI stands for. It’s ‘copying Strickland’s ideas,’” Strickland said, noting that every major business group in Ohio stood by him in 2008 when he signed an executive order to overhaul government regulations. “John, you’ve been on Wall Street for so long, you don’t know what’s already happened in Ohio. If he thinks that I’ve been such a terrible governor, why is he copying my ideas? I think it’s a fair question.”

Accomplishments, criticism

On the campaign trail, the governor typically spends time talking about holding the line on taxes, working to renew the Third Frontier $700 million bond issue, cutting 4,800 jobs from the state payroll, freezing college tuition for two straight years, and passing an electricity reform bill that kept Ohio’s power rates 10 percent below the national average.

“We are doing more, I believe, than any state in America,” he told a crowd of 100 at the UAW Recreation Park just north of Springfield.

But following positive remarks on his record, Strickland usually then launches a torrent of criticism of Kasich.

“You know in some elections there are just little differences between the candidates but not in this election. John Kasich and I just flat out disagree,” he said.

Strickland criticizes Kasich for taking $50,000 a year from Ohio State University for minimal work, refusing to publicly release his tax returns, voting against raising the federal minimum wage and taking a $400,000 bonus from Lehman Brothers as it headed for bankruptcy in 2008.

“He says, ‘I’m the son of a mail carrier.’ Well, I’m the son of a steelworker. The difference between the two of us: I never forgot where I came from and I think he did because his service in the Congress indicates that he was there advocating for the wealthy and the well-to-do. And his work on Wall Street indicates that he was up there, trying to enrich himself while participating in decisions that resulted in great harm to the working people of this country,” Strickland told the pro-labor audience in Springfield.

Growing up in southern Ohio

While Kasich believes in smaller government, lower taxes and the free market, Strickland sees government as a mechanism to lend a helping hand. He attributes public schools and encouraging teachers to giving him an opportunity to succeed in life and climb out of poverty.

Strickland is one of nine children born to Orville and Carrie Strickland and raised on Duck Run Road in Scioto County.

His life story sounds like something out of a Mark Twain novel: after fire destroyed their house in 1946, the Stricklands lived in a chicken coop until the apple barn could be converted into a house; he attended elementary school in a one-room school house with a teacher named Mabel Keller; the family lacked indoor plumbing until Strickland was in high school and they often hunted small animals for food.

“Were it not for education, I almost certainly would have become a cement mason and finished concrete. That was sort of the pattern followed by my brothers,” Strickland said.

The only one of nine kids to go to college, Strickland went on to earn a master of divinity, a master’s degree in guidance and counseling and a Ph.D.

Before entering Congress in 1992, Strickland worked as an ordained Methodist minister, helped manage a United Methodist home for children and served as a prison psychologist.

“I think all of these activities that I’ve undertaken as an adult have a common thread and that is a desire to be of service to people and to be of service to the public,” he said. “I think that’s what resulted in my entering politics.”

He ran for Congress in 1976, 1978 and 1980, losing each time. He took another crack at it in 1992, won a single term by a tight margin and lost his re-election bid in 1994 after voting in favor of President Bill Clinton’s budget and tax hike package. Not to be put off, Strickland staged a successful comeback two years later and then managed to hold the seat until his 2006 run for governor.

Riding an anti-GOP wave in 2006, Strickland beat Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell in the governor’s race by 20 points. Strickland promised to fix school funding and “turn around Ohio” in his first term — whether he accomplished either is up for debate.

Entering office in January 2007, Strickland enjoyed a brief honeymoon during which his first budget was adopted with only a single dissenting vote.

To the delight of the GOP, he preserved the tax reform package pushed through the legislature in 2005.

He pushed through a significant energy bill that re-regulated the electricity industry, kept rate increases in check and set benchmarks for renewable energy use by 2025.

Strickland revamped the university system with an eye on holding tuition increases down, increasing credit transfers among public universities and colleges and getting more people to go to college.

He also adopted into law a K-12 education reform package that will be phased in over a decade but critics say it isn’t backed by the necessary funding and includes too many mandates on school districts.

Ohio is still struggling economically. Unemployment climbed as high as 11 percent but has since gradually come down to 10.1 percent.

Among 11.4 million Ohioans, 13.3 percent are in poverty, 1.6 million receive food stamps and 600,000 are out of a job.

Going into the next budget cycle, Ohio may be short as much as $8 billion. Neither Strickland nor Kasich has provided details of how they plan to solve the budget crisis.

Strickland argues that he deserves a second term.

“I’ve been a good governor in very difficult times,” he said. “As I have said, I have lived within the means available to me and yet I have continued to invest in the things that are important to Ohio’s future.”

He added, “We have put Ohio on a clear path for future economic growth.”