COLUMBUS, Ohio—Roger Stone, a nationally known political operative known for his colorful antics as much as his campaign work, will be lending a hand with Charlie Earl’s campaign for governor, state Libertarians announced Monday.

Stone, who ran Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign in Ohio and worked as a campaign aide for several other Republican presidents, said he wanted to help Earl fend off what he said were GOP attempts to disqualify him from the ballot.

"Republicans shouldn't fear competition at the ballot box," Stone in a statement Monday. "Trying to block the Libertarians from ballot access is anti-democratic."

Libertarian Party of Ohio spokesman Aaron Keith Harris said he wasn’t sure what Stone will be doing for Earl’s campaign.

"He's just trying to raise more awareness" for Earl's campaign and his fight to get on the Ohio ballot, Harris said.

Stone, who left the Republican Party to become a Libertarian in 2012, has won national media attention over the years – and not always for the right reasons.

In a 2007 profile, the Weekly Standard dubbed him a "Nixon-era dirty trickster, professional lord of mischief." The New Yorker said in a 2008 piece that he "regularly crossed the line between respectability and ignominy."

His flamboyant style (including a flashy wardrobe and a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back) and pithy list of rules (“Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack”) has also made him stand out from the crowd.